
: - 



THE 



LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

OF 

WILBURN WATERS, 



The Famous Hunter and Trapper 
of White Top Mountain; 

EMBRACING 

EARLY HISTORY OF SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA 



Sufferings of the Pioneers, etc., etc. 



By CHARLES B. COALE, 
For thirty-three tears Editor of the Abingdon Virginian. 



RICHMOND: . 
G. W. GARY <fc CO., STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS. 

1878. 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 18TS, by Charles B. Coal: 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE. 

This book, except that portion of it illustra- 
ting the life and adventures of Wilburn Waters, 
the great hermit hunter and trapper, comprises 
a series of articles written for a weekly news- 
paper, partly for pastime, and partly to preserve 
for the use of the future historian a few facts 
connected with the early settlement of South- 
western Virginia, and which otherwise might 
have been lost. These facts, together with at- 
tempted descriptions of various localities, and 
all that the book contains, have the merit at 
least of being true. Being thus hastily thrown 
together, without revision or systematic arrange- 
ment, the author's only apology is, that it re- 
appears in this form at the urgent solicitation 
of a great number of persons who read the 
articles as they appeared in the "Abingdon Vir- 
ginian," and who thought them worthy of pres- 
ervation. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

With no further apology or explanation, this 
little volume of "multifarious small things" is 
thrown into the tide of current literature, not 
without hope that it may afford a few hours' 
pleasant pastime at the fireside of the moun- 
taineer, and some of its facts form the nucleus of 
a much more comprehensive work by an abler 
pen, embodying the history of our own beauti- 
ful Southwestern Virginia. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

DESCRIPTION OP WHITE TOP MOUNTAIN, NEAR WHICH, 
FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, WILBURN WATERS SELECTED 
THE SPOT FOR HIS CABIN, AND WHERE, EXCEPT AT 
SHORT INTERVALS, HE HAS EVER SINCE RESIDED, - 17 

CHAPTER II. 

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, NATIVITY AND EARLY ORPHANAGE 

OF WILBURN WATERS, 24 

CHAPTER III. 

THE INDIAN NATURE DEVELOPED — LYING OUT THREE 
MONTHS — FIRST SCHOOLING — HIS GREAT STRENGTH 
AND ACTIVITY, --------31 

CHAPTER IV. 

HIS FIRST WOLF-HUNTING, 36 

CHAPTER V. 

ADVENTURE WITH A WOUNDED BUCK, 42 

CHAPTER VI. 

EXPERIENCE AT A CAMP-MEETING WITH A NEW HAT,* - 49 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

IN A CLOSE PLACE WITH A LARGE WOUNDED BEAR, - 53 

CHAPTER VIII. 

AN EXCITING WOLF-HUNT IN BLACK MOUNTAIN, - - 58 

CHAPTER IX. 

FOUR BEARS IN ONE TREE, ------ 64 

CHAPTER X. 

FIGHT WITH A BEAR ON THE BRINK OF A PRECIPICE, - 69 

CHAPTER XL 

A BEAR HUNT IN THE IRON MOUNTAIN, 73 

CHAPTER XII. 

AN ADVENTURE WITH A MAD WOLF, 78 

CHAPTER XIII. 

ADVENTURE WITH A FOUR-PRONGED BUCK IN THE 

HOLSTON, 83 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ANOTHER ADVENTURE WITH A WOUNDED BUCK, - - 89 

CHAPTER XV. 

AMUSING ADVENTURES WITH BEARS, 93 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XVI. 

FIRST WHITE SETTLER IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA, - 97 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE ABINGDON OF MODERN TIMES, - - - - - 103 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, ITS ORGAN- 
IZATION, ETC., ----____ 109 

CHAPTER XIX. 

GENERAL CAMPBELL'S ADVENTURE WITH A DARING 

TORY, ---------- H5 

CHAPTER XX. 

SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA — ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND RE- 
SOURCES, ---------119 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SOILS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY— PRODUCTS— ANCIENT 

AND MODERN MODE OF FARMING, - . - - 124 

CHAPTER XXII. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SALTWORKS OF SOUTHWESTERN 

VIRGINIA — THEIR MANAGEMENT, REVENUES, ETC., - 129 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A JAUNT INTO TAZEWELL COUNTY, WITH A DESCRIPTION 
OF SOME OF ITS ROMANTIC SCENES AND NATURAL 
CURIOSITIES, --------- 136 



Xli CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

AN INDIAN INCURSION AT ABINGDON, AND INCIDENTS IN 

PIONEER LIFE, - - - - - - - -147 

CHAPTER XXV. 

A RACE FOR LIFE— INDIAN DEPREDATIONS ON THE HOL- 

STON, ___------- 152 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

A THRILLING NARRATIVE OF KATY SAGE, THE LOST CHILD 

OF GRAYSON, - - - 158 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE ABDUCTOR OF KATY SAGE— THE HORSE-THIEF'S RE- 
VENGE, ---------- 163 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE PIONEERS OF CASTLE'S WOODS, AND TROUBLES WITH 

THE INDIANS, -------- 166 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

TROUBLES OF THE EARLY SETTLERS, - - - - 171 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND FLATS, - - - - 177 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

REMARKABLE INCIDENTS IN PIONEER LIFE, - 183 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

A SINGULAR INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF HON. WILLIAM C. 



PRESTON, 



187 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MASSACRE AND CAPTIVITY OF THE PIONEERS OF ABB'S 

VALLEY, ----------193 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE MASSACRE OF ARCHIBALD SCOTT AND HIS CHILDREN, 

AND THE CAPTIVITY OF HIS WIFE, - - - - 200 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

BRIEF HISTORY OF TWO COLLEGES, 205 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

INCIDENTS OF THE WAR, 213 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE STREAMS AND SPRINGS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, - 219 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

STORY OF A HAUNTED BALL ROOM, . 225 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

MONTICELLO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS, - - - 234 

CHAPTER XL. 

BARON TEU BEUF, THE FRENCH NOBLEMAN WHO SETTLED 
IN RUSSELL COUNTY NEAR THE CLOSE OF THE LAST 
CENTURY, --------- 240 

CHAPTER XLI. 

THE NATURAL BRIDGE OF SCOTT, 243 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLII. 

BRIEF HISTOBY OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN SOUTH- 
WESTERN VIRGINIA, AND THE FIRST MINISTERS — 
MEMOIRS OF BEV. CHABLES CUMMINGS, - 246 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM INTO SOUTHWESTERN 
VIRGINIA, WITH THE NAMES OF THE FIRST MINISTERS 
OF THAT DENOMINATION, ---___ 251 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE HOLSTON SETTLE- 
MENTS, AND ITS PIONEER MINISTERS, - 256 

CHAPTER XLV. 

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CANEY VALLEY, - 259 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

HISTORY OF THE WEEPING WILLOW, - 263 



WILBURN WATERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

DESCRIPTION OF WHITE TOP MOUNTAIN, NEAR WHICH, FORTY- 
FIVE YEARS AGO, WILBURN WATERS SELECTED THE SPOT 
FOR HIS CABIN, AND WHERE, EXCEPT AT SHORT INTERVALS, 
HE HAS EVER SINCE RESIDED. 

Before entering upon a narrative of the life and adven- 
tures of the remarkable man who is to be the subject of 
the following pages, it is proper that the writer should 
give his readers some idea of White Top Mountain, near 
which, when about twenty years of age, Wilburn Waters 
selected the spot for his future home. 

This is a peak in the Appalachian range, here more 
familiarly known by the local name of Iron Mountain, 
and near the point where the three States of Virginia, 
North Carolina and Tennessee all unite at a common 
corner. It is about twenty miles from Abingdon the way 
the crow flies, though perhaps thirty by the intricate bridle- 
paths, through intervening mountains, by which it is ap- 
proached. Until within a few years, comparatively, owing 
to its inaccessibility, it was almost in its primitive state, 
and visited only by hunters and trappers, and here and 
there a "squatter," who may have fled to its fastnesses to 
evade those penal enactments which a certain class of men 

9 



18 WILBUEN WATERS. 

in most communities deem oppressive. It is some 5,000 
feet high from base to summit, and upwards of 6,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. Its summit is a vast field, com- 
prising from 300 to 500 acres, without a tree or shrub, and 
covered with a luxuriant growth of wild grass, resembling 
that of our Northwestern prairies, which is highly nutri- 
tious, and cropped with insatiable avidity by vast herds of 
stock, driven there from the neighboring settlements to 
graze and fatten. During the months of May and June, 
this field, as well as a large portion of the wooded part of 
the mountain, is gorgeously carpeted with wild flowers of 
every imaginable hue, and so fragrant that their perfume 
is often wafted a considerable distance on the wings of the 
wind, which sometimes sweeps across the broad field like 
the dying throes of a hurricane, with fitful shrieks of wild 
and melancholy music. 

Bordering this natural field are great numbers of native 
gooseberry and currant bushes, which yield their acrid 
fruits in never-failing abundance, and the wild leopard- 
lily, springing from its rocky bed, sways to and fro, and 
scatters its rich perfume as the blast sweeps by. Upon the 
very summit, various springs of ice-cold water gush from 
the rocks and leap down the declivities, babbling their 
wild music as they disappear among magnificent rhodo- 
dendrons and the dazzling crimson of the Indian pink. 
/These waters are so pure and light that they never oppress, 
no matter how freely the thirsty visitor may quaff them. 

The field above referred to is bordered by a very singu- 
lar as well as very beautiful growth of timber, known in 
that region by the name of Lashorn. Some of these trees 



WILBURN WATERS. 19 

grow to an immense height, but generally are not more 
than from thirty to fifty feet high, and, what is very re- 
markable, where not crowded they are perfectly flat on top, 
spreading out to a diameter of from fifteen to thirty feet. 
It is a species of and very much resembles Norway Spruce, 
an ornamental tree often found in the yards of our more 
elegant city residences. The lashorn of White Top is 
peculiar to that locality, and of the thousands that have 
been transplanted, not one has ever been known to grow, 
though some have lived several years. The limbs at the 
top where they spread out are so tenacious and inflexible, 
and so closely interlaced, that the writer has seen as many 
as twenty persons standing and stepping about upon the 
top of the same tree at the same time. It is very easy to 
ascend and descend, as the limbs usually begin at the 
ground, and being cut off about a foot from the trunk, a 
very convenient "Indian ladder" is formed, and then a 
hole being cut through the foliage in the centre of the top, 
it is not difficult for- even a lady to ascend and step out 
upon the vernal platform. Where the forest of this sin- 
gular and beautiful growth is dense, there is no under- 
growth, the trees limbless to the height of forty or fifty 
feet, the tops intermingling and forming a canopy the sun 
can scarcely penetrate, and the earth covered with a carpet- 
ing of lichen moss, which feels to the tread as soft and 
elastic as a sponge. During the summer months, these 
trees are literally alive with snow birds, the little creatures 
congregating here in millions to build their habitations 
and rear their young. 

Notwithstanding the romantic beauty of this grand ele- 



20 WILBURN WATERS. 

vation, and the exhilarating effects of the highly rarified 
atmosphere upon the system, hundreds and thousands of 
people have lived and died within sight of it without ever 
having paid it a visit. The reason for this has been the 
difficulty of access, want of accommodations in the vicinity, 
and the mere cattle-paths by which it is approached through 
deep and intricate gorges, over steep foot-hills, and through 
almost impenetrable laurel jungles, sometimes infested by 
bears, wolves, wild-cats and rattlesnakes. There are but 
few of these "varmints" there now, except the latter, 
Wilburn having nearly exterminated them. Rattlesnakes, 
however, are still abundant, though settlers are rarely 
bitten. 

The view from the summit of White Top is grand be- 
yond description or* even conception. Looking toward the 
south, you have within the scope of vision, stretching away 
from east to west, the Blue Ridge range, which, in the dim 
distance, looks like an azure band bordering the horizon, 
with here and there a tall peak hiding its head in the 
clouds. To the east, mountain piled upon mountain meets 
the view, their gentler slopes in places dotted with "clear- 
ings," and a column of smoke, here ascending and there 
laying in long folds along the mountain side, denoting the 
rude habitation of the ruder "squatter." Looking toward 
the north, you have the grand old Cumberland range, the 
barrier that divides the "Dark and Bloody Ground" from 
the Old Dominion, as if swelling up from an ocean of 
green, and struggling to lift itself above the vapor that 
hangs lazily upon its sides. To the west, the view, though 
less imposing, is not less beautiful. You have before you 



WILBURN WATERS. 21 

the broad Valley of Holston, which, although diversified 
with hill and dale, bold promontories and pine-clad ridges, 
still, from the altitude from which you look out upon it, 
it has the appearance of a vast sea dotted with picturesque 
islands. In the distance, the spires and tin roofs of the 
town of Abingdon glisten in the sunlight, large planta- 
tions look like blankets spread out in the forest, and at 
' intervals, as it dashes out from behind a bluff, or winds its 
way through a green pasture, may the White Top Fork of 
Laurel be seen, like a serpentine thread of silver, its spark- 
ling waters shimmering like diamonds among the foliage 
and wild-flowers upon its banks. 

The writer of this has enjoyed the luxury of many a 
magnificent scene in his wanderings, but never has seen 
that from the summit of White Top excelled, or even 
equaled. He was there on one occasion when a storm 
came riding on the blast more than a thousand feet below 
where a company of gentlemen were standing. The whole 
valley was shrouded as with a pall. The deep -toned 
thunder bellowed below, preceded by brilliant flashes of 
lightning, illuminating the dark bosom of the cloud. The 
scene was awfully grand, and so far transcends the power 
of mortal description, that he would not dare attempt it. 

It was near the base of this mountain, upwards of forty- 
four years ago, in an obscure "cove," where the rays of 
the sun are partially shut out by the dense foliage of a 
grove of giant sugar-maples, that Wilburn Waters, then 
about twenty years of age, pitched his lonely tent and 
lighted his first camp-fire. He chose this spot for several 
reasons — first, because the foot of man rarely polluted the 



22 WILBURN WATERS. 

virgin soil; second, because it was the covert of wild ani- 
mals in cold and stormy weather; and third, because a 
bright and bubbling spring of pure cold water leaps from 
the rocks and dashes off singing its wild lullaby among 
gorgeous flowers and the songs of birds of strange and 
brilliant plumage. 

Wilburn is one-fourth Indian — what is called a quar- 
teroon. For some reason he has never given, except his 
fondness for solitude and hunting, he sought and settled 
the obscure spot in which he has resided so many years, 
and still thinks he would be crowded to suffocation were 
a family to settle within sight or hearing of him. The 
writer of this, soon after hearing of the hermit-hunter, now 
more than twenty-five years ago, found his way into the 
mountains and sought him out. When he found him, he 
was eating his morning meal upon a log, — which consisted 
of corn cake, bear-meat and wild honey, and water from 
the spring — his two savage bear-dogs meanwhile standing 
sentinel, awaiting his word for action. "We broke bread 
together, and from that day to this, if the writer has a 
friend upon whom he could rely in any emergency, that 
friend is Wilburn Waters, the great hermit-hunter of 
White Top Mountain. 

Although sixty-odd years of age, he is still active and 
athletic, still devoted to hunting, still unerring in his aim, 
and was, when I commenced writing these pages in March, 
1874, on a wolf hunt in the Alleghanies, which he expected 
to be the most extensive of his long career in that line, an 
account of which will probably be included in this little 
book. Whenever he finds the "sign" of a bear, wolf, or 



WILBURN WATERS. 23 

any other animal, he never loses the trail, although he may 
have to follow it from mountain to mountain for days to- 
gether and to great distances, and is almost as sure of his 
game as if he had it. He is very pious, and will have no 
intercourse with a swearer or Sabbath- breaker. His motto 
is, "If a man has neither fear of nor respect for his Maker, 
he is a dangerous companion for his fellow-man, and should 
be shunned by all who love the Lord and honor His in- 
stitutions." 



CHAPTER II. 

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, NATIVITY AND EARLY ORPHANAGE OF 
WILBURN WATERS. 

Wilburn Waters was born on what is called Ready's 
river, a branch of the Yadkin, in Wilkes county, North 
Carolina, on the 20th day of November, 1812. From the 
best information that can now be had, his father, John P. 
Waters, was a French Huguenot, who emigrated to Amer- 
ica in early life, about the beginning of the present century, 
and settled in South Carolina. He was a man of some 
education and liberal acquirements, of strong prejudices 
and passions, restless, reckless and fond of adventure. 
Being remarkably stout, fearless and passionate, he was 
considered dangerous when excited or laboring under a 
sense of injury, and was supposed by those with whom he 
communicated most freely, to have been a refugee from 
South Carolina, if not from France, from some cause he 
never revealed to others. He settled down, without any 
apparent calling, among the simple and obscure people on 
Ready's river, where, after a time, he married his wife, the 
mother of Wilburn, who was a half-breed Catawba Indian. 

From what little history we have of the Catawbas, they 
were a small portion of the tribe that inhabited Roanoke 
Island when Lord Raleigh took possession of it about the 
middle of the sixteenth century, and being dissatisfied with 
the encroachments and exactions of their new and power- 



WILBURN WATERS. 25 

ful neighbors, they sought a new home among the moun- 
tains on the western boundary of the colony, where game 
was abundant, and the clear, bold streams afforded a plen- 
tiful supply of trout and other excellent varieties of fish. 

It is not known whether or not there were other Indians 
there at the time, but they had occupied their quiet retreat 
but a few years before the whites began to settle near and 
even among them, and at the time John P. Waters found 
a home among them they were mostly half-breeds and 
quarteroons, with very few full-bloods, and the latter the 
aged members of the community. It is said they origi- 
nally bore the name of Chowans, but after finding their way 
into the mountains they took the name of Catawba, the 
name by which one of the principal streams in that region 
was known. 

Wilburn's mother was one of these people, and was, as 
before stated, a half-breed. He is, therefore, what is termed 
a quarteroon. She was said to have been very handsome, 
tall and straight, with nearly all the characteristics of a 
full Indian, except that she was unusually amiable in her 
disposition, and fond of quiet, domestic life. She had 
some education, was pious and affectionate, and was very 
anxious that her children should have pious instruction 
and the best education their limited means and opportu- 
nities would allow. She was the mother of five children — 
four sons and one daughter — of whom Wilburn was the 
youngest. She died when he was between two and three 
years old, and the only recollection he has of her is, that 
she had long, glossy black hair, which she wore loose, and 
reached nearly to the floor when she stood erect. She died 



26 WILBUEN WATEES. 

young, and her death was a terrible blow to her husband, 
who was warmly- attached to her, and whose turbulent 
nature she could control with a word. Notwithstanding 
this attachment, and his apparently unsubdued grief, he 
soon married another woman, left the community and his 
children among their relatives, and was never after heard 
from by his family. 

Wilburn's first realization of the loss of his parents, and 
a circumstance that seems to have been burnt into his 
memory by bitter tears, was in being carried away on a 
horse by a stranger, and adopted into a white family seve- 
ral miles away from the little circle he had known as 
kindred and friends. Of course the children — even the 
oldest not being able to provide for himself — became sepa- 
rated, and in the providence of God were never re- united 
as one family again. 

Soon after his father's second marriage and disappear- 
ance from the neighborhood, Wilburn, then about three 
years old, was taken to the house of Mr. Frank Flournoy, 
on lieady's river, in Wilkes county, where he remained 
between two and three years. Here, when between four 
and five years old, he gave the first evidence of his natural 
fondness for daring and adventure. Following some ladies 
out one Sunday afternoon to the bank of the river, where 
there was a shelving rock reaching down into the water at 
a very deep and rapid place in the stream, he was greatly 
interested in seeing them each in turn slide down the face 
of the rock as near to the edge of the water as possible 
without getting in, and where the rock was so steep they 
could not get back without help. Refusing to permit him 



WILBURN WATERS. 27 

to try the experiment, he determined to dodge them on 
their return to the house, go back to the stream, and see if 
he couldn't get farther down on the rock than any of them 
had gone and get back without aid. He carried out his 
plans, let himself down the steep face of the rock to the 
very edge of the water by inserting his fingers in the 
crevices, and then discovered that it was impossible to get 
back. Young as he was, he took in the situation at a 
moment, and governed himself accordingly. Still cling- 
ing to the rock, with his hold weakening every moment, 
and being aware that he was bound to drop in, he noticed 
which way the currant ran, and that some willows just 
below the rock shot out their roots on the bottom of the 
stream, he determined to let all holds go, drop to the bot- 
tom, and then make his way as fast as possible on all-fours 
to the roots and work himself out. His plan succeeded, 
and he returned to the house perfectly elated that he had 
performed a feat that none of the young ladies had accom- 
plished. 

After remaining with Mr. Flournoy till he was nearly 
five years old, he was apprenticed to a saddler by the name 
of John Ernest, high upon the Yadkin, where he found 
his first bee-tree, cut it down and got a gallon of honey. 
Here, too, he got his first whipping for taking a whole day 
to go an errand not requiring more than half an hour. 
Knowing that he deserved it, he submitted to the chastise- 
ment without complaint, though it was very mortifying to 
his pride, and made him wonder why it was that one per- 
son should have the right to punish another. 

At the expiration of the first year, Ernest sold his time 



28 WILBURN WATERS. 

to Nelson Alloway, sheriff of Wilkes county, for $30. 
Here he remained eleven years, or till he was about seven- 
teen years old. When about twelve, he had his first adven- 
ture with a bear — a pet, chained to a stake. It was at the 
house of a neighbor, and he went to it when no one was 
about, and was feeding it chinquapins. While engaged in 
this, the bear became very friendly, and laid one paw upon 
his shoulder. Feeling complimented by this manifesta- 
tion of so much affection, he-Jjept feeding the animal, 
which became still more affectionate by placing the other 
forepaw on his other shoulder. This, he thought, was re- 
markably kind, but in a moment he was brought to a sense 
of his danger by the bear clapping both of its hind feet 
upon his knees. He now found himself in bruin's power, 
and saw in a moment that there was but one way of escape 
from a hug that didn't exactly comport with his sense of 
propriety. He formed his plan in a moment, which was to 
slowly and carelessly recede till the chain became tight, 
and then to spring off suddenly, tearing himself loose. 
He did so, leaving part of his clothing in possession of 
the bear, which became terribly enraged at his escape. 

About this time he had his first adventures with a deer, 
a copper-head snake and a mad dog. Being on the river 
bank one morning, he saw a deer that had been run down 
by dogs lying in the bushes near the edge of the stream. 
Seeing that it was not disposed to move at his approach, 
he took a cord from his pocket and tied it around one of 
its hind legs, when the deer gave a sudden flirt, and 
striking Wilburn with both hind feet, plunged him into 
the middle of the stream, nearly stripping his clothes from 



WILBURN WATERS. 29 

his body and lascerating his person. He then called up a 
dog and caught and killed the animal, as much safer and 
quicker than attempting to lead it home with a cord. 

Being bitten on the ankle by a copper-head, he was dis- 
abled six weeks, and was only relieved by the application 
of a chicken cut open and the warm insides applied to the 
wound, which he still regards as a sovereign remedy. 

During this year, or when he was about thirteen, he was 
out in the field one day, and saw a strange dog passing 
near him, which he called and tried to coax to him. The 
dog passed on without noticing him, and bit a horse and a 
hog near by. In a little while several men passed along 
in pursuit, and informed him that the dog was mad. He 
considered his escape a special providence. 

He became excessively fond of rabbit-hunting and fish- 
ing, and followed one or the other pursuit nearly every 
Sabbath. He had but little respect for religion at that 
time, as the family he lived with were very strict on Sun- 
day and very profane through the week. Seeing a very 
large yellow-jackets' nest, a man told him he could easily 
whip it out, as they couldn't sting in that time of the 
moon. He undertook the job and soon found his pants 
and hair full of the little torments, and didn't get rid of 
them till he ran to the river and dived. He has never 
since had much faith in moon signs. 

Wilburn had a great many little adventures while in 
his early teens, showing his recklessness and presence of 
mind in extricating himself. For instance, he several 
times became lost in the mountains, but discovered by ex- 
perience that by taking the opposite direction to that he 



30 WILBURN WATERS. 

believed to be, or rather seemed to be right, he always 
found himself without difficulty. When about fifteen, he 
offered up his first prayer. He had climbed a very large 
blackoak after squirrels. Getting some ten feet above the 
first limb, which was sixty or seventy feet from the ground, 
he found it very difficult and dangerous to get back. He 
fastened his fingers in the bark, but could get no purchase 
for his legs or feet. He then held on with his hands and 
prayed to the Lord for assistance. Then, making another 
effort, his legs took hold and he got down safely. He is 
still satisfied the Lord heard his prayer and relieved him. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INDIAN NATURE DEVELOPED — LYING OUT THREE MONTHS — 
FIRST SCHOOLING — HIS GREAT STRENGTH AND ACTIVITY. 

Wilburn, now in his seventeenth year, begins to show 
the spirit of retaliation and vindictiveness of the Indian. 
Mr. Alloway having chastised him for some trivial offence, 
with the promise of repeating it the following morning, 
he sharpened his tomahawk and knife and ran fifteen miles 
to a mountain, near where his oldest brother lived, where 
he laid out three months, sometimes coming down to his 
brother's cabin in the night. His brother begged him to 
return and finish out his time, and Mr. Alloway proclaimed 
so that he got to hear it, that if he would return and stay 
till he was of age he would give him twelve months' 
schooling, and a horse, saddle and bridle. He would listen 
to no proposition, but when he heard that Alloway was 
hunting for him, and sometimes saw him from his moun- 
tain perch riding among the settlers in search of him, he 
determined that he would never be taken alive, and that 
he would kill any one who attempted to arrest him. 

After spending three months in the mountain, he left 
there, and went to live with a man by the name of John 
Cox, in Ashe, now Alleghany county. Here he remained 
only about a year, the Indian propensity at retaliation 
making it necessary for him to change quarters. He set 
some traps near the barn, and caught a number of part- 



32 WILBURN WATERS. 

ridges oue afternoon. As Mr. Cox, who was absent, was 
very fond of birds, Wilbnrn put four of them away to save 
for him. In the morning they had disappeared, and some 
one of the family having told a hired woman that Wilburn 
accused her of eating them, which he disclaimed, she flew 
into a violent rage, and declared that he should catch no 
more birds, as she would go right straight and destroy his 
traps. She started to do so, and as the traps were within 
view from an upper window in the room where the woman 
slept, and where she had a bran new feather-bed of her 
own, he went up there to watch her motions. There were 
four traps, and as she approached the first she destroyed it, 
As soon as he saw this, he deliberately took out his knife 
and split the tick of her own bed half-way along. She 
then demolished a second trap, and he finished that side of 
the tick with his knife. As the third trap was scattered, 
half the other side of the tick had a slit in it, and as 
the fourth and last trap shared the fate of the others, the 
last slit was made in the tick and the bed was in two pieces. 
Having finished the traps, she returned to the house still 
mad with passion, and said to Wilburn: "Now go and fix 
up your traps if you want them." " All right," said he, 
" and if you want to sleep on your new bed to-night, you 
had better go up to your room and fix it." Suspecting 
something wrong from his countenance and manner, she 
ran upstairs and found the feathers all over the floor and 
the tick in two pieces. This made the house too hot for him. 
and he had to leave. Having had no education or good 
counsel up to this time, he felt his great need of both, and 
determined to go to his oldest brother, William P. Waters, 



WILBURN WATERS. 33 

for advice and direction, who was keeping a school at a 
place called Whiteoak Grove, in Wilkes. He carried out 
his determination, was kindly received by his brother, taken 
into the school, where he continued six months, paying his 
board at a neighboring house by working nights and morn- 
ings and Saturdays. While going to school he cut down 
and split up two very large hickory trees for a flax and 
cotton shirt. 

When the school term was out he hired himself to a man 
by the name of Hanks, on Elkin, in Wilkes, at twenty-five 
cents per day. One afternoon Hauks and another man 
proposed to go to a deep hole in the creek to bathe, and in- 
vited Wilburn to go with them for the purpose of having 
some sport at his expense. He discovered this from their 
talk and manoeuvres-, and determined to keep even with 
them if he could. They were under the impression that 
he couldn't swim, and intended to amuse themselves with 
him in deep water. When the other man got in the water 
Hanks ordered Wilburn to strip off and jump in, telling 
him the man in the water would not let him drown, but 
would learn him to swim. Pretending to be willing to 
comply, he prepared himself, and just as Hanks approached 
to push him off the bank into the water, he suddenly 
caught him (Hanks) by the ankles and tossed him over his 
head backward into the middle of the stream, with his hat, 
boots and all his clothes on. Wilburn then quietly dressed 
himself and walked back to the house, Hanks taking it all 
in good part, or at least saying nothing about it. 

Hanks was himself a laborer, and a very poor man, and 
hired Wilburn, as the latter discovered, at twenty-five 
3 



34 WILBURN WATERS. 

cents per clay for the purpose of hiring him out at fifty, 
thus making a quarter clear per diem. So the next day 
after the adventure in the creek, Hanks and Wilburn went 
to work for Thomas Bryant in the same neighborhood, 
where Hanks was to receive a dollar per day for the two. 
Mr. Bryant, thinking this not exactly fair, said to Wilburn : 
"Why work for Hanks, he will never pay you anything, 
but come and work for me and I will pay you something." 
This suited Wilburn's views of things, so he quit Hanks 
and went to live with Bryant, particularly, as he said, they 
lived light at the house of Hanks, while there was always 
plenty at the house of Bryant, and he was fond of good 
living. He remained with Mr. Bryant two years, was 
kindly treated, had wholesome moral instruction, and was 
promptly and liberally paid for his labor. 

Shortly after going there to live, there was a corn-shuck- 
ing and quilting at Mr. Bryant's, which drew together a 
large number of the men and women of the neighborhood. 
After the men had come to the house, Mr. Bryant directed 
Wilburn to chop and carry in some wood. He chopped 
it, and was about to carry in a log first to put on behind, 
when ov/j of the men sat down on it. Wilburn asked him 
to get up as they were in a hurry in the house for a fire, 
when the man rose and demanded a scuffle. Wilburn, 
Indian-like, had no disposition for that sort of amusement, 
and took it in solid earnest. Finding the man disposed to 
keep it up, he drew back and knocked him some twelve 
or fifteen feet, the man turning some two or three somer- 
saults before he stopped. This exasperated the men, and 
they determined to so annoy him after supper as to make 



WILBURN AVATERS. 35 

him understand a joke. Accordingly they got out into the 
yard and commenced playing with each other in such a 
rough way as to induce Wilburn, in the simplicity of his 
nature, to imagine that they were fighting. The plan suc- 
ceeded, and when he got among them first one and then 
another would thump him in the back. By this time he 
discovered that instead of fighting each other they were 
fighting him, as he thought, and concluded that it was 
about time to go to work in self-defence, and in less than 
a minute he knocked several of them down, hurting one 
or two quite badly. This was the second time he had de- 
veloped the Indian, and he informed the writer that it was 
on that occasion he discovered for the first time his great 
strength and activity, though then under eighteen years of 
age. 

Sometime after this, or before he was nineteen, he went 
to live with Rev. Morgan Bryant, brother of Thomas, in 
Ashe county, North Carolina. Here commenced his career 
as a hunter of the laiger game, a narrative of his exploits 
and wonderful adventures in which will be commenced 
in the next chapter.. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HIS FIRST WOLF-HUNTING. 



When Wilburn commenced shooting with a rifle he was 
very awkward and unsuccessful, missing about as often as 
he hit. Perseverance and a determination to excel, how- 
ever, soon made him very expeit, and it was not a great 
while before he could hit an object the size of the bullet 
that fitted his gun as far as he could see it, and he can do 
so yet although sixty-five years of age, always taking sight 
with both eyes wide open. The secret of his great success 
in hunting has been his wonderful eye-sight, instinct in 
following a trail, and the cat-like steal thiness with which 
he can approach his game. 

Soon after going to live with Morgan Bryant, he com- 
menced his career in the woods by hunting wild turkeys, 
at which he was very successful, and rarely failed to secure 
one or more where the most experienced hunters in that 
region failed to find them. When hunting in company 
with others, he would nearly always get as many as all the 
rest together. He soon became noted as a turkey-hunter, 
and had no rival in the mountains of Ashe. 

We now, after leaving out many adventures with deer, 
catamounts, &c, come to his first wolf-hunt, or rather his 
first wolf-trapping. Mr. Bryant himself, as well as several 
of his neighbors, were old and experienced wolf-hunters, 
but notwithstanding this there was an old male wolf in 



WILBURN WATERS. 37 

the settlement that had been living on the stock of the 
farmers for several years, and every plan they had devised 
to capture him had failed. Early one morning, Mr. Bry- 
ant, in crossing a mountain where there was an old wagon- 
road, found six of his sheep that had been slaughtered the 
previous night by this old enemy. He at once returned 
to the house and directed Wilburn to take the ox-cart up 
and bring the dead sheep down and skin them. Wilburn, 
with his innate love of adventure asserting itself, proposed 
that if he would let him have the dead sheep for bait he 
would catch the wolf. Mr. Bryant ridiculed the idea, that 
he, a young and inexperienced boy, who had never even 
seen a wolf, and had no knowledge of the habits of the 
cunning animal, should undertake to capture him, when 
the most experienced and daring hunters in that mountain 
range had failed and long since given up the job as hope- 
less. Wilburn, however, confident of his ability to cir- 
cumvent and capture the old depredator, that now prowled 
about with impunity, was so importunate that Mr. Bryant 
finally consented that he might use the sheep for that pur- 
pose, and also to use one of his traps. So he yoked up the 
oxen at once and started, and before night he had the dead 
sheep hauled to a convenient place, quartered them, and 
placed the pieces down the side of the mountain toward 
a small stream that was spanned by a fallen tree, which 
his Indian instinct doubtless led him to believe would be 
a good place for wolves to cross. He carried the last 
quarter across this log, and suspended it under the log and 
above the surface of the water with a hickory withe; then, 
by removing the stones and moss immediately under it in 



38 WILBURN WATERS. 

the stream, he scraped out a place in the sand and fitted 
his trap in it, and then nicely covered it with the sand and 
moss, and left it to take its chance. 

Being impatient, and almost absolutely certain that he 
would catch the wolf, he returned in a day or two, but 
none of the bait had been disturbed. In a few more days 
he returned again, and found all the bait gone except the 
piece suspended over the trap. He was now pretty sure 
of his game the next morning, and on returning found the 
bait undisturbed, but the trap was gone. (For the infor- 
mation of those who are unacquainted with the manner of 
trapping for wolves, it may not be amiss to state that a 
large steel -trap is used, with a chain attached four or five 
feet long, with a triple hook or grapnel at the end. The 
trap is never made fast to any thing stationary, as the wolf, 
if he cannot get away with it, will gnaw off his limb and 
escape. Nor is a trap ever baited, but carefully concealed 
in a place where it is supposed a wolf will travel. Hence 
Wilburn concealed his exactly where he knew the wolf 
would place his feet if he attempted to get the bait sus- 
pended from the log.) 

As before said, when Wilburn approached the bait he 
saw at a glance the trap was gone, and on casting his eye 
to the ground he saw the trail very plainly, and followed 
it to a laurel thicket about fifty yards off. On parting the 
bushes with his hands, there stood the first wolf be had 
ever seen within a few feet of him, with one leg in the 
trap, and the grapnel fast in a ruot. As he was an exceed- 
ingly large animal, Wilburn determined to take him home 
alive, and for this purpose made a noose in a cord lie had 



WILBURN WATERS. 39 

with him, slipped it over the mouth of the wolf, then tied 
his feet all together, and slung him around his shoulders 
like a powder-horn. Finding him too heavy to carry, 
however, he cut his throat, took off the hide and carried 
that home, which was sufficient evidence that he had cap- 
tured a wolf that all the most noted hunters in that region 
liad long since given up to depredate with impunity. 

This first success gave him notoriety among the settlers, 
and in a few weeks he was sent for from a distant neigh- 
borhood to go over and trap for an old female wolf — per- 
haps the mate of the one he had captured — that had been 
killing sheep for two or three years, and could not be caught 
by the most experienced trappers. Having borrowed the 
same trap, he soon appeared on the scene of action. On 
inquiry, he found that the old animal hid been in the 
neighboring mountains several years, and had become so 
wary and cunning that all attempts at capturing her had 
proved abortive. Wilburn at once made his way to a 
certain range where her lair was supposed to be, and it 
was not long before he discovered signs of her whereabouts 
and her line of travel towards the settlement where she 
procured her rations. This was very plain to him in a 
piece of marshy ground on the mountain side, near an 
obscure cattle path, where crawfish had erected those pecu- 
liar chimney-like structures which we frequently see in 
marshy places. His instinct for trailing where none but 
an Indian can discern a track, soon revealed to him that 
the wary old animal avoided the path where so many traps 
had been set for her, and invariably placed her feet upon 
one or more of these crawfish chimneys, as if conscious 



40 WILBURN WATERS. 

there could be no traps concealed beneath them. Seeing 
that she had passed that way a night or two before, leav- 
ing one of these little towers standing, and naturally sup- 
posing she would put her foot upon it the next time she 
passed that way, he carefully removed it, scooped out a 
place for his traps where it stood, fitted it in nicely, con- 
cealed it with leaves, and placed the crawfish structure 
upon the trap, looking precisely as it did before he moved 
it, and left the trap to take its chance. 

In a day or two after he returned and found that the 
wolf had been in his trap and left two of her toes, which 
he put in his pocket. Knowing that she would not go far 
with her cripled feet, he went out into the settlement and 
got about a dozen men and as many dogs to run her down, 
telling the men that she had been in his trap, and that he 
knew' exactly where to start her, without informing them 
that she had left her toes. Next morning they were all 
on the ground at an early hour, and started the wolf within 
fifty yards of where the trap had been set. The men being 
stationed at various "stands" in the range, she found it 
difficult to get out, and doubled from point to point with 
the dogs on her trail, till late in the afternoon, when she 
was forced to seek and take shelter in her cavern. At this 
time all the men except two had given up the chase and 
returned to their homes, and only two dogs remained, be- 
longing to the two men who held out. Wilburn himself 
was so close upon the wolf when she entered the den that 
he saw her, and the two dogs were right at her heels. He 
called up his two companions, and told them to make their 
dogs go in and bring her out. They entered several times, 



WILBURN WATERS. 41 

but were as often whipped out, torn and bleeding. Grow- 
ing impatient, Wilburn at last took off his coat and 
crawled into the cavern snake-fashion. After proceeding 
thus some distance, he saw her eyes shining like two balls 
of fire in the back part of the den, brought his gun, which 
he had pushed along before him, to bear, and fired. Not 
seeing her eyes after this, he worked himself out and sent 
the dogs in again, when they soun returned dragging the 
dead wolf after them. 

As the scalp was worth $20, both the men, affecting to 
believe that it was not the wolf that had been in the trap, 
and each claiming that his dog "holed" her, and that 
Wilburn, therefore, had no claim to her. "Well," said 
he, "I can settle the dispute in a minute," drawing the 
two toes from his pocket. "Here," said he, "take those 
toes and examine her feet, and if you find they will fit 
one of them, she belongs to me, if not she belongs to you 
between you." This was sufficient evidence that the wolf 
had been in the trap, and Wilburn, after a little plain talk 
to them about their meanness, tock off the skin and made 
his way home with it. This gave him the reputation of 
being the most daring and successful trapper in all that 
mountain region, and made him an envied as well as hon- 
ored character among hunters and trappers. 



CHAPTER V. 

ADVENTURE WITH A WOUNDED BUCK. 

About the time of Wilburn's first experience with wolves, 
as related in the preceding chapter, he had his first adven- 
ture with a wounded and exasperated buck, which he re- 
gards as the most dangerous animal to approach in our 
forests, when wounded or at bay. 

He had gone out to a "lick" a little before night to 
watch for deer. These licks, or low marshy places, where 
there are deposits of sulphur, salt, &c, and which deer 
love to frequent, are very numerous in all this mountain 
region. He had gone to one of these, which he knew deer 
were in the habit of visiting almost every night. He had 
just climbed a tree to be out of sight, and just about dusk 
up marched two bucks, one of them very large, with a 
magnificent head of horns. After cautiously snuffing the 
air as if apprehensive of a hidden enemy, and failing to 
wind him, they walked boldly into the lick. Failing to 
get them in range so as to kill both at the same fire, he 
selected the larger of the two, brought his rifle to bear 
and fired. Both sprang off at the crack of the gun, but 
he saw from the motions of the one that he shot at, that it 
was badly if not fatally wounded. He came down from 
the tree, followed the trail a few yards, and there lay his 
buck apparently lifeless. As he approached it, it sprang 
to its feet in a moment and came at him with the ferocity 



WILBURN WATERS. 43 

of a tiger. There was no escape from a terrible struggle 
for life, and he knew that his only chance was in his extra- 
ordinary strength and activity, as well as coolness and 
presence of mind. He had scarcely had time to think 
even this much, when the buck rushed upon and at- 
tempted to impale him. Pie grabbed him by the horns 
and threw him several times, but the active animal was on 
his feet again in an instant, and so the struggle continued 
several minutes — to Wilburn it seemed hours — sometimes 
one on top and then the other, but Wilburn's great strength 
enabled him to keep his hold, although his clothes were 
badly torn and his person considerably lacerated by the 
sharp hoofs of the animal, which cut with the keenness of 
a knife. Whilst thus struggling, he at length found time 
to get his knife out of his pocket and open it with his 
teeth. He made a desperate lunge and supposed he had 
entirely severed its windpipe, but it made another effort 
for freedom, kicked him loose and plunged into the under- 
growth. He followed it a short distance and found it dead 
with its head nearly severed from its body. 

Although Wilburn has many times since been in very 
close places, and had many hand-to-hand fights with both 
bears and wolves, he thinks he never has been as near 
whipped out and in as much danger of losing his life, as 
he was in that encounter with a maddened four-pronged 
buck. 

Being now about nineteen, and having but very little 
learning, he determined to return to the neighborhood of 
Thomas Bryant, where he had lived the year before, and 
go to school. He continued in the school about ten months, 



44 WILBURN WATERS. 

and had learned to read, write and cypher a little. The 
wolves becoming very destructive about this time, it was 
proclaimed in the neighborhood that the counties of Ashe, 
North Carolina, and Grayson, Virginia, had offered hand- 
some premiums for wolf-scalps, he at once determined to 
embark in the business, for the sake of both pleasure and 
profit. He was boarding at this time with a man by the 
name of Wyatt, whose daughter was the wife of Andrew 
Blevins, and they lived at White Top. Blevins and his 
wife being then on a visit at Wyatt's, and White Top being 
within the prescribed limits of the premium for scalps, 
Wilburn asked Blevins if his was a good region for wolves. 
On being informed that any number " used in those parts," 
as well as bears and all sorts of wild animals, he at once 
determined to go there and try his luck, and accordingly 
gathered up his gun and traps, and was soon at his future 
home. 

But here we must go back a little, and bring up the 
history of Wilburn's religious convictions, experience and 
conversion, which will doubtless be dry and uninteresting 
to some, who can, if they choose to do so, skip the balance 
of this chapter. His religious convictions commenced 
while at school, under the preaching of Rev. George Dou- 
glass, a Baptist minister. As he expressed it, he felt very 
wretched, but could not tell why, and tried all manner of 
ways to suppress his feelings. He then returned to Mor- 
gan Bryant's, where there was regular circuit preaching 
by the Rev. George Baker. He determined to attend 
preaching regularly, give way to his feelings and see what 
it would result in. On one occasion he felt as if he were 



WILBURN WATERS. 45 

suffocating, that the house was too small for him, that he 
was too near the preacher, a cold chill ran through his 
system, and he thought he was about to die. As soon as 
preaching was over, he started to a very dense thicket he 
knew of in the woods, where no one could see him, for the 
purpose of praying. When he reached it, it was not half 
as dense as he had supposed, and he was very much afraid 
somebody would see him. However, after peering all 
around and satisfying himself that no one saw him, he 
knelt down and prayed. He arose with his mind still 
unsatisfied and desponding, and again tried to stifle his 
convictions, but the more he tried the more wretched he 
felt. On Sundays he would take his Bible and go out into 
some obscure and dark hollow in the forest to read and 
pray, but the doctrine of decrees that he had sometimes 
heard confused and perplexed him, and then again he 
would seem to hear as if in an audible voice the words 
"Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." 

He continued in this frame of mind several months, 
often exhorting others to forsake their sins, although still 
unconverted himself. It was at this time that he met with 
Andrew Blevius, and the impression that White Top would 
be a favorable place, on account of its solitude, to And 
religion as well as game, induced him to determine to 
make its fastnesses his future home. Although after get- 
ting there he lived in a family who had no regard for the 
Sabbath and sacred things, he continued to read his Bible 
and pray, and had an idea that religion would be revealed 
to him in an audible voice or some other equally miracu- 
lous way. Finding his own efforts of no avail, he at last 



46 WILBURN WATERS. 

made a full surrender, and came to the conclusion that he 
would cast himself unreservedly and helplessly upon the 
great and abounding mercy of the Lord, who had promised 
to save all who called upon Him in sincerity, truth and 
faith. This he determined to do, if he died and perished 
in the attempt. He then retired to his garret and prayed 
the livelong night, and early in the morning he felt as if 
he had dropped a heavy weight, and was inexpressibly 
happy. The skies looked brighter, the trees greener, the 
sun shone with a glory he had never seen before, the birds 
sang more sweetly, the flowers were surpassingly fragrant 
and beautiful, everybody he saw looked better than they 
had ever looked before, the very woods and mountains 
seemed to clap their hands with joy, and everything 
appeared to be praising the Lord. A great burden had 
been lifted from his heart, and he felt as if he could fly 
away as on the wings of an eagle aud enjoy the full frui- 
tion of ihe saints in light. He then for the first time 
comprehended, with inexpressible delight, that Scripture 
which says "The wind bloweth where it listeth: thou 
nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it com- 
eth or whither it goeth," &c. 

From that day to this — more than forty-four years — he 
has never faltered or doubted, though, like all others, he 
has had his seasons of depression and refreshing. He 
found peace in the fall of the year, though he made no 
public profession duringthe following winter, nor unite him- 
self with a church; he did not suppress or try to conceal 
his feelings, but rebuked sin wherever he saw it, and ex- 
horted sinners to forsake their evil ways. As he was 



WILBURN WATERS. 47 

among Baptists principally, they had some influence with 
him, but his feelings revolted at close communion and the 
doctrine of no falling from grace. In the spring he put 
up a rude shelter where has ever since resided, and although 
entirely alone, he held what he called family prayer every 
morning and night. Soon after this a family came to stay 
with him awhile, and it was a great cross to him to pray 
in their presence, but he determined to pick up the cross 
and carry it, which was far better than to drag it along, 
and continued to keep the flame alive on the altar. 

During the summer he heard of a two days' meeting 
that was to be held at the house of Isaac Widner, in Wid- 
ner Valley, twelve miles from his cabin, and determined 
to attend. He did so when the time arrived, where he 
met for the first time Mr. John Wesley Price, a very pious 
gentleman, who talked to him a great deal, and seemed to 
take unusual interest in his spiritual welfare. There was 
to be a love-feast meeting during the day, and Mr. Price 
insisted that he should attend it and relate his experience. 
He at first refused, believing that he could not possibly 
speak before so many people, but finally determined to try 
as a matter of duty. When the time came, he felt as if a 
great weight held him down to his seat. Several had 
spoken, and, thinking that his turn had come, he made a 
desperate effort to rise, sprang clear from the floor, spoke the 
best he could, in a very stammering way, and became ex- 
ceedingly happy. There was to be a secret prayer-meeting 
that evening, and fearing that he might be called on to 
pray, he tried to make an excuse to be absent; but Mr. 
Price prevented him, and he was the first one called upon. 



48 WILBURN WATERS. 

He complied in a very feeble manner, but he thought of 
the Publican's petition and took encouragement, remark- 
ing to a friend that it was no wonder Jonah was willing 
to be swallowed by a whale rather than go to Nineveh and 
preach. 

Liking the Methodist doctrine and manner of worship 
best, he united with that church, and from that day to this, 
" through evil as well as good report," he has maintained 
his religious integrity, performing his Christian duties and 
obligations with an earnestness and zeal manifested by few, 
and even since he has been an old man he will walk miles 
through the mountains to attend religious worship. A few 
years ago he was appointed Superintendent of a Sabbath- 
school in a neighborhood eight miles from his residence, 
and he never failed to be present, no matter how inclement 
the weather. 

While on the subject of Wilburn's religious character- 
istics and experiences, the next chapter will narrate some of 
his peculiarities of thought and action at a camp-meeting 
not many years ago. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EXPEKIENCE AT A CAMP-MEETING WITH A NEW HAT. 

In 1858 or 9 the Holston Conference held its annual 
session in Abingdon, and the writer of these pages knowing 
that Wilburn had never attended the deliberations of such 
a body, and believing he would enjoy both the proceedings 
and the ministrations of the occasion, prevailed upon him 
to come out of his retreat, although he was averse to visit- 
ing towns and had not been in Abingdon for many years. 
He came, attended the sessions regularly and punctually, 
was at preaching every day and night, but failed to mani- 
fest as much interest as it was supposed he would. Bishop 
Early, who presided over the deliberations of the body, 
became acquainted with and very much interested in him, 
and talked a great deal with him about his wild and soli- 
tary life, as well as about his religious joys and sorrows. 
One evening near the close of the term of conference, 
during; the entire session of which the devotional exercises 
had been of that dignified and quiet character not always 
suited to the tastes of persons of impulsive and excitable 
temperament, and to Wilburn rather lifeless and formal, 
the Bishop asked him what he thought of the ministra- 
tions and other exercises of the occasion. 

" Well, Bishop," said he, " I will answer your question 
by giving you a bit of history in my own religious experi- 
ence. About three years ago I heard of a camp-meeting 
4 v 



50 WILBUKN WATERS. 

in Ashe county, North Carolina, some twenty-five or thirty 
miles from my cabin, and on Friday night I made up my 
mind to go, fixed up my plunder, greased my boots, and 
started in that direction very early on Saturday morning. 
On the way I had to pass a store, and as the hat I had on 
was rather shabby, I concluded to stop in and buy a new 
one, as much to honor the Lord as to look more respecta- 
ble myself. I bought one that suited me, paid pretty high 
for it, put it on, left the old one and my gun at the store 
till I should return, and arrived at the camp-ground early 
in the afternoon. When I arrived, a minister was in the 
stand preaching a cold and inanimate sermon — one, as I 
thought, without unction or spirituality in it — and I quietly 
took a seat as near the altar as I could get, putting my new 
hat under my seat for safety. Just as I was about to raise 
my heart in prayer, I heard some one's feet shuffling under 
my seat, and I knew my hat was in danger. This cut my 
prayer short, and I moved the hat and sat it on the ground 
beside me and went to praying again, but just then a 
man behind me spirted a mouthful of ambier all round it, 
and I began to think it would be ruined in spite of all I 
could do if I didn't keep it on my head, which I couldn't 
well do in the congregation. I moved it to the other side, 
where another man seemed to have a like grudge at it, and 
I took it into my lap. The fear that I would mash it 
drove prayer out of my mind, and I looked all round for 
a limb or something to hang it on out of the way of feet 
and tobacco-juice, but could see nothing. The minister 
preached on, and I again tried to pray, but that hat was 
in my way and filled my mind, and my prayers seemed to 



WILBUKN WATERS. 51 

stick fast in my throat. The sermon seemed to me as cold 
as a snow-drift, and the meeting as lifeless and formal as a 
Quaker funeral. When I tried to be devotional, some- 
thing would whisper in my ear, 'You had better take care 
of that hat, or you will get it mashed as flat as a batter- 
cake.' At length the long, dry sermon closed, sunset came, 
and some one proposed, as the Lord had not poured out 
His spirit upon us, perhaps he would, if we would all, 
with one heart and one mind, go out into the silence of the 
forest and supplicate Him. We went, I with my new hat 
in my hand, fearful all the time that it would get mashed 
in the crowd or injured in some way. We prayed and 
sung, and sung and prayed, but our prayers didn't seem 
to rise higher than our heads, and our songs higher than 
the tree-tops. At last a good old father in Israel said : 
'Well, brethren, there must be an Achan in the camp, the 
Lord refuses to bless us, and we might as well return to 
our tents.' 

" I stood musing a few minutes, not knowing what to 
do, with my hat still in my hand for fear it would get in- 
jured, when I heard a man utter a deep and bitter groan. 
Looking around, I saw that all had left except that man 
and myself, and he seemed to be in great agony. I asked 
him what was the matter, when he replied that he was a 
great sinner, and he didn't believe the Lord would pardon 
him. ' Yes He will,' said I, ' if you call upon Him as you 
should with your whole heart and soul, without depending 
upon anything you can do yourself.' He said he had 
prayed, but it didn't seem to do any good, and asked me 
if I wouldn't pray for him. I told him yes, bless God I 



52 WILEURN WATERS. 

would, laid my hat carefully away in a clump of bushes 
where I thought nothing could get at it, and to praying I 
went with all my might, soul and spirit. How long I 
prayed I don't know, but when I came to myself the stars 
were all out, the whole congregation had returned, the 
despairing man was shouting and praising the Lord, all 
the believers were happy and clapping their hands with 
joy, and for the first time after the man asked me to pray 
for him I thought of my new hat, and it was jspse. J 
looked for the clump of bushes, but they had been fe?dden 
down by the great crowd, but fiually seeing something 
black in the dust where the congregation had been shout- 
ing and shaking hands, I picked it up and shook it into 
some sort of shape, and it was that new hat of which I 
had been so careful, and which had occupied all my 
thoughts. Forgetting it, my heart went out to the Lord. 
He heard my supplications, the unhappy man was con- 
verted, the son of Jesse came into the great congregation, 
the cry of 'what shall I do to be saved?' rang out on the 
night air like the noise of many waters, and there was joy 
and gladness in the encampment. 

"And now, Bishop," said he, "there is a moral to this 
story, and it is this — there are too many new hats in this 
conference." 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN A CLOSE PLACE WITH A LARGE WOUNDED BEAR. 

As stated in a preceding chapter, Wilburn made his first 
appearance at White Top in the fall of 1832, when he was 
about 20 years of age. Being but little mast that season, 
there was of course but little game, and he did but little 
successful hunting, not being yet prepared for wolf-trapping. 
While roaming through the mountains, however, he came 
across the place where he subsequently pitched his tent. 
As related in the first chapter, he selected it because it was 
in a rich, obscure cove, some distance from the nearest 
settlement, and was the common refuge of wild animals 
in cold and stormy weather. In addition to this, it was 
central among the surrounding mountains, and a spring of 
clear, cold water gushed from the rocks within a few feet of 
the site of his future cabin. The land being vacant, he 
entered 640 acres in the spring, and pitched his tent. This 
was a rude concern, such as we sometimes see at a coal-pit, 
with one end open. This was his habitation for four years, 
where he lay at night with his feet to the fire on the outside, 
often lulled to rest after a hard day's hunt, by the howls of 
wolves and the screams of catamounts, which would prowl 
around but were too much afraid of the fire to approach 
very closely. 

During the first summer and fall after going to house- 
keeping in this way, he killed a large number of wild 



54 WILBUEN WATEES. 

turkeys and deer, six bears and several wolves and cata- 
mounts, though he had no daring or dangerous adventures. 
The first wild bear he ever saw was during the fall, while 
out stalking deer, but a mile ur two from his cabin. It 
was standing on a log about sixty yards from and looking 
straight at him. Having heard that a bear was a very 
hard animal to kill, and unless struck in a vital place was 
a very dangerous adversary, he determined to shoot it in 
the mouth or eye. As the former was the largest target, 
he concluded to aim at that, and if he should fail to inflict 
a fatal wound, and it should make fight, he would meet it 
fair and square with his tomahawk. He drew a bead and 
fired, when the bear sprang from the log to the ground 
and died in a few minutes. On examining it, he found 
the ball had split his nose, passed through the lower part 
of his mouth, through the heart, and traversing the whole 
length of the body from end to end. 

Sometime after this, having killed a number in the 
meantime, he had his first dangerous encounter with a 
very large wounded and ferocious bear. He had been fol- 
lowing the trail on Pond mountain all day through a deep 
snow, and as the snow was still falling at nightfall, he de- 
termined to remain where he was till morning, instead of 
returning to his cabin several miles off, as the track might 
be filled up before he could return. Thus deciding he 
scraped away the snow at the root of a large tree, started 
up a fire with the dryest sticks he could find, and laid down 
supperless to rest. 

As soon as the snow on the surrounding peaks began to 
glisten in the rays of the rising sun, he arose, shook the 



WILBURN WATERS. 55 

flakes from his locks, and started out with his rifle to find 
the tracks of the bear. The snow that had fallen through 
the night had entirely obliterated the trail, but he had gone 
but a short distance till he saw the tracks of a 'coon that 
had passed along so short a time before that the trail was 
still plain. Feeling that a little fresh meat — and especially 
'coon meat, second only to that of bear with a hunter — 
would be very acceptable for the breakfast of a man who 
had no supper the night before, he followed on a hundred 
paces or more, when his attention was arrested by what 
seemed to be a bear-skin rolled up and lying on the snow, 
some thirty or forty paces in front of him. While stand- 
ing and looking at it intently, and wondering how it had 
gotten there, or who could have killed and skinned a bear 
so near his habitation without his knowledge, he noticed 
it gently rising and falling like an animal breathing. Scru- 
tinizing it closely, and being satisfied that it had life in it, 
the difficulty with him was, whether it was a fullgrown 
bear partially covered by the snow or a cub lying on the 
surface. If it should be the former, it would be a dange- 
rous experiment to shoot at it without a vital part visible 
for a mark, and if the latter, a ball would kill it, hit 
where it might. He revolved the matter in his mind some 
minutes, watching it closely all the time, and finally con- 
cluded that it was nothing but a cub, and, to use his own 
language, he "shot at the pile." At the crack of the rifle, 
the identical bear he had followed all the day before rose 
from his bed, the snow surging and whirling as if it had 
been stirred by a hurricane into a column of fog, and fix- 
ing his glaring eyes upon his assailant, gave unmistakable 



56 WILBURN WATERS. 

evidence of a furious attack. Wilburn was well enough 
acquainted with the disposition of a wounded bear to com- 
prehend the situation in an instant, and as the animal 
started towards him he knew there was but slight hope 
of escape from a square fist-aiid-skull fight with a very 
large, wounded and exasperated bear. He had but a mo- 
ment to think, but in that moment he remembered that 
his gun was empty and that he had left his tomahawk 
at the place where he had slept. There was, therefore, 
but one possible chance of escape, and that was to spring 
as high as he could at a single bound up a beech sapling 
by which he was standing, and remain as motionless as he 
could, and this must be done while the bear would lose 
sight of him for a second in passing round a large tree be- 
tween them. Wilburn made the spring at the very instant 
the tree was between them, holcliug to a limb above him 
with one hand, holding his gun with the other, and his 
feet meantime drawn as high up as he could get them, some 
three or four feet above the ground. Before the sapling 
had done shaking, and while thus perilously suspended, 
the bear, in a terrible rage from his wound, with his nose 
to the snow and his ears projecting forward, passed imme- 
diately under and almost touching him. The situation 
was a fearful one, for the bear, scenting but not seeing him, 
tore up roots and twisted down saplings as if they had 
been straws ; circling round and round, and occasionally 
springing upon and fighting a log or a rock in his eager- 
ness to grapple with his adversary. Failing to see his 
mortal foe, who had been suspended above him for several 
minutes by one arm, he took Wilburn's back track and 



WILBURN WATERS. 57 

disappeared in the undergrowth about fifty yards off. 
Knowing that he would not give up the effort to find him 
while the track was visible, but would return in a few 
minutes, Wilburn dropped from his perch, ran down pow- 
der and ball in his gun without patching, and followed on 
as fast as he could. When he arrived at the edge of the 
undergrowth he heard the bear making a furious attack 
upon a rock that protruded out of the snow, and parting 
the bushes he saw him struggling as if with a living 
enemy, and only about fifteen paces off. Wilburn made a 
noise to attract his attention, and as the bear raised his 
head, and before he had time to spring to the attack, the 
report of the rifle rang along the mountain-side, and the 
bear rolled over dead in his tracks with a ball in his eyes. 
He weighed near four hundred pounds, and yielded 
eighteen gallons of oil. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AN EXCITING WOLF-HUNT IN BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

In giving the more thrilling of the hunting adventures 
of Wilburn Waters, the writer cannot pretend to give them 
in the order in which they occurred, as he is without dates 
as to most of them. He will content himself with giving 
the facts, as these are all that the reader will care about. 

Some years ago, but little hunting having been done for 
some time, the wolves became very numerous as well as 
very destructive, not only in Southwestern Virginia, but 
fearfully so in "Western North Carolina; so much so that 
but few sheep had escaped them in the vicinity of the 
Black, Yellow and Roan mountains in Rip Van Winkle's 
dominions. The fame of Wilburn Waters, as an intrepid 
and successful hunter and trapper having gone out into all 
that country, a number of farmers and stock-raisers whose 
folds had been broken up and scattered — some sixty in all 
— drew up an obligation to give him one sheep each for 
every wolf he would capture, in addition to the five dol- 
lars' bounty given by the county for each scalp. 

Wilburn considered the proposition, and after killing a 
few that were infesting his own neighborhood, he employed 
one of his nearest neighbors to attend to his stock, locked 
up his cabin, gathered his traps, and started out upon the 
perilous and laborious expedition. Having reached his 
hunting-ground, a hundred miles away from his home, he 



WILBURN WATERS. 59 

entered upon his business. Month after month he tra- 
versed those silent and almost impenetrable ranges, sleeping 
in their gorges and among their precipices, but still the 
srame eluded him, and seemed to mock his efforts to come 
up with them. Finally coming on "sign," and following 
this till it became a broad trail, he stuck to it like a blood- 
hound, following it from mountain to mountain and from 
county to county — at one time leading him out into the 
open country, and then again plunging into the deepest 
and darkest recesses of that uninhabited and almost un- 
trodden region. 

At length the tra.il became so plain that he could run 
upon it, and estimate not only the number, but the sizes 
of the different individuals of the gang, from their tracks 
at their watering places. The sign and trail appearing to 
be fresh all the time, he knew he must be close upon them, 
and followed on from crag to crag and from cavern to 
cavern, for weeks, and yet they eluded him, and at night 
seemed to be as far from him as they were in the morning. 
But, having undertaken to capture them, he intended to 
do it, though he should have "to fight it out on that line" 
all the year. After having followed them thus closely, 
and so long and patiently, and believing them to be but a 
short distance off, he marked the spot at which he had 
arrived, and concluded to return to the nearest settlement, 
rest a day or two, replenish his exhausted haversack, return 
to the trail and never give it up as long as one of the gang 
remained. With this determination he started back, but 
had walked but a few paces, when he resolved to try the 
last expedient, though a dangerous one, to ascertain whether 



60 WILBURN WATERS. 

or not they were within hearing, which was to howl. This 
was an important matter as well as perilous, and required 
to be managed with great adroitness. If an exact imitation, 
he knew that the gang would dash at him in the greatest 
fury, and if not an imitation, that it would frighten and 
drive them to a distant covert. He stopped, gave a long 
tremulous howl, as is the custom of the wolf when sepa- 
rated from his companions, and so exact was the imitation, 
that the echo was still reverberating along the distant peaks, 
when a portion of the gang, eleven in number, sent up a 
respousive howl altogether, that almost, as he expressed it, 
made his blood run cold, so fearful was it in the deep, dark 
gorges of the mountain, miles away from the nearest human 
habitation. Before the combined howl had ceased ringing 
in his ears, he heard them coming through the undergrowth, 
and by the time he had his large double-barrel shot-gun .to 
his shoulder they were within a few feet of him, with 
foaming jaws and bloodshot eye-balls. Drawing a bead 
upon the largest, and waiting till another came in line, he 
pulled the trigger, and the two fell dead in their tracks, 
and at the crack of the other barrel another sprang in the 
air and fell motionless alongside of them. The others, 
instead of avenging their death, or falling upon and rend- 
ing their slain companions, as they often do, and with the 
terrifying smell of gunpowder in their nostrils, raised a 
long melancholy howl and fled back into the deeper and 
more distaut recesses of the mountain. 

Securing the hides of the three he had killed, and 
making sure of the course the others had taken, he made 
his way out to the nearest settlement, rested a day or two, 



WILBURN WATERS. 61 

replenished liis haversack, and again plunged into the forest, 
determined not to return till he had captured the last wolf 
6f the gang. He held out faithfully, though they led him 
from mountain to mountain and from gorge to gorge, to 
great distances and for weeks; but when he returned he 
brought the scalps, not only of all that gang, but of others, 
making in all forty-two wolves as his winter's hunt. Be- 
sides these, he captured during the hunt a number of cata- 
mounts, a few bears, an otter or two, and any number of 
wild turkeys and other small game. 

During the same general hunt, he had an exciting time 
with a detachment of five wolves that had wandered off to 
some distance from the main gang. He was entirely alone, 
without even a dog, high up one of the tall peaks of the 
Roan mountain, and several miles away from the nearest 
human habitation. The five wolves he was in search of 
were two old ones and three half grown.* They had de- 
stroyed a great deal of stock in the range as well as in the 
adjacent valleys, running out dogs that had been put upon 
the trail, and even evincing a disposition to attack man 
when alone. 

Wilburn had found "sign" and had followed it up to a 
tall cliff near the summit of one of the highest and most 
inaccessible peaks in the range. It was a sultry, drizzly 
day, and the " sign " appearing to be several days old, and 
having greatly fatigued himself working his way up 
through tangled vines and laurel jungles, and climbing 
over and around steep and ragged precipices, he lay down 
to rest under a shelving rock and fell asleep. In about an 
hour he arose refreshed, and crawling out of his resting- 



62 WILBURN WATERS. 

place he found that the old leader of the gang had been 
reconnoitering while he slept, and had passed along on a 
ledge a few feet below him. Picking up his gun and 
tomahawk, he took the track, and on approaching a pre- 
cipice, he saw the old male wolf at its base, quietly licking 
his chops and apparently winding prey or an enemy in the 
distance. Stealthily advancing to within convenient range, 
Wilburn brought his shot-gun to bear and fired, when the 
largest and most formidable wolf of the gang fell and died 
without a struggle. Securing the skin, he made his way 
with great difficulty to the top of the precipice, and there, 
just beyond the turn of the summit, he saw the four others, 
three of them gamboling like puppies around the dam, not 
having heard the report of the gun under the cliff. They 
were in an open place, and it was very difficult to get within 
range without being seen, heard or winded, but he made 
out to "snake" it to within forty yards of them, and 
"pulled down." Two of them dropped dead, but the old 
dam and one of the cubs escaped into a cavern near by. 

Having started out with the determination of capturing 
the whole family, he went to digging with a sharpened 
stick; he soon reached the old one, which was too large to 
get far into the hole, drew her out by the hind legs, and 
tied her feet together. He had to widen the passage for a 
distance of ten or twelve feet before he could reach the 
other. The hole, after being thus worked out, was barely 
large enough to admit his body, and it being impossible 
for the wolf to escape, he had to meet it face to face. All 
that he could see of the animal was its eyes, which shone 
like two balls of fire in the darkness of the cavern, and 



WILBURN WATERS. 63 

having no room to operate with gun or tomahawk, he 
cautiously slipped his hand over the wolf's head, grasped 
it by the neck, brought it out and tied it as he had the 
other. He then marched out into the settlement with two 
live wolves and three skins, without having received a 
scratch or wasting a load of ammunition. The day's work 
brought him $175, made up by the settlers, whose stock 
had been destroyed and whose lives had been menaced by 
the gang. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FOUR BEARS IN ONE TREE. 

During the war, owing to the scarcity of ammunition 
and the danger of losing his stock during his absence, 
Wilburn hunted but little. Hence bears accumulated 
somewhat in the neighboring mountains, and even ven- 
tured into the settlements, as if conscious that their mortal 
foe had given them the largest liberty to come and go at 
pleasure. About the close of the war, in passing over one 
of the mountains in his vicinity from his own to a neigh- 
bor's cabin, he came upon bear sign, and the hunting of 
that species of game having become second nature with 
him, he could not resist the temptation to return to his 
cabin for his dog and gun, which he had left behind, and 
to follow the trail, whether it should terminate in the 
neighboring mountains or lead to coverts many miles 
away. The sign having indicated to his unerring judg • 
ment, or rather instinct in such matters, that there were 
four bears in company — an "old she" and three half-grown 
cu bs — he was all the more determined to follow them up, 
knowing that it was next to impossible for them to escape 
him within sight of the smoke of his own chimney, and 
to capture a whole family of bears at one time was rather 
more of a wholesale business in that line than he had 
been accustomed to of late years. Having returned to 
the trail and started the dogfupon it, the eagerness with 



WILBURN WATERS. 65 

which he bounded off convinced Wilburn that it was fresh 
and the game not far in advance. He followed on as 
rapidly as he could, and at the end of some three or four 
miles the dog gave notice that the game was at bay. 
Hurrying up, he was delighted to find all four of the bears 
on the topmost limbs of a very high tree on the summit 
of the mountain. After looking at them awhile and rea- 
soning with himself as to the best policy to pursue under 
the circumstances, being alone and having but one dog, he 
determined to kill the old one and two of the cubs, and 
then, as he was in want of a pet, take the largest cub 
alive. But the latter he couldn't do without help, for he 
had tried the strength of cubs before, and could not hold 
and tie it without assistance. 

He then shot the old one out, which fell like a beef at 
his feet, but the cubs being smaller and quicker in their 
motions, eluded his aim for some time, and the sun had 
gone down before he succeeded in shooting them out. The 
larger and finer of the cubs was still in the tree, and now 
it became necessary for him to keep it there, which he 
knew would be difficult after it had lost its companions, 
till he should go to the cabin he had started to visit in the 
morning and procure assistance. Accordingly he built a 
fire at the root of the tree, and telling his dog to stand 
sentinel during his absence, soon found his way to the 
cabin, several miles off. When he reached it he was dis- 
appointed to find that there was not a man about, but 
there were two women there, both stout and fearless, as 
most mountain women are, and they promised to be with 
5 



66 WILBUEN WATEES. 

him by dawn of day in the morning, and tie the cub if he 
could catch and hold it. Satisfied with this arrangement, 
and telling them exactly how and where to find him, he 
returned to the tree, and found that the dog had been 
faithful to his trust, the cub being still in the tree, but ex- 
hibiting considerable impatience to effect a "change of 
base." Wilburn stretched himself upon his back near the 
iire, and during the weary hours of that long, cold night 
he kept his eye on the motions of that well-grown and ac- 
tive cub, as it would occasionally come down the body of 
the tree to within ten or a dozen feet of the ground, and 
then, with the apparent agility of a squirrel, mount again 
to the very highest limb large enough to bear its weight. 
He knew that it would not be apt to come down while the 
fire was burning brightly so close to the tree, and hence 
permitted it to enjoy the sport of descending and ascend- 
ing at pleasure. 

Just as day was breaking, the two women, true to their 
promise, made their appearance upon the theatre of action. 
He placed them at a little distance, prepared with thongs, 
instructed them not to speak and to remain as motionless 
as possible, and then lay down within reach of the tree, 
with the dog and the fire on the opposite side. As soon as 
the sun began to tinge the tree-tops, the cub knew it was 
time to be traveling, and gradually descended, tail fore- 
most, as is their custom, occasionally reaching out its hind 
feet feeling for the earth. After considerable delay, climb- 
ing down the body of the tree and then bounding up again, 
as if halting between two opinions, it came within reach, and 
as it protruded its feet to feel for the ground, Wilburn's 



WILBUEN WATERS. 67 

iron grasp was upon each foot, and away they went down 
the mountain side wheelbarrow fashion, at a rapid rate, re- 
gardless of whatever interposed. Wilburn finally suc- 
ceeded in getting astride of it with his hands tightly 
grasped about its neck, but it was larger and stronger than 
he had bargained for and carried him with John Gilpin 
speed over bushes, logs, rocks and briars, sometimes one 
on top and then the other, tearing nearly every rag from 
his body, and lacerating him with its claws from the top 
of his head to the soles of his feet. But he held on, for it 
would be a burning disgrace to lose the cab after waiting 
for it the livelong night and saying that he intended to 
take it alive. They finally reached the base of the moun- 
tain, both pretty well exhausted, but still in a terrible 
struggle for the mastery. 

The women in the meantime followed on with the thongs 
as fast as they could, though far in the rear, as they had no 
bear to ride, and when Wilburn heard them coming in the 
distance, as they followed the broad trail left by himself 
and the cub, he came to the conclusion that he was not in 
proper costume for the reception of company, his wardrobe 
comprising but little besides the waistbands of his pants, 
suspenders and one sock. Whilst ruminating as to the best 
policy to adopt under the circumstances, the women, from 
whom he was still concealed by the thick laurel, were 
within a few paces of him, when he informed them it 
would be imprudent to come any nearer to the cub, and 
that if they would return to the settlement and procure 
assistance to get the dead bears out, he would manage to 
tie the cub with his gallowses, and meet them at the cabin 



68 WILBURN WATERS. 

sometime during the day. In a word, there was no admit- 
tance for ladies at that show. 

The women, having seen detached portions of his cloth- 
ing in his wake, took the hint and left him and the cub to 
settle the difficulty in their own way. Wilburn, after con- 
siderable trouble attended with no little danger, succeeded 
in tying his pet tight and fast, and in due time made his 
appearance among his female friends, "clothed and in his 
right mind," having safely carried the cub to his cabin, 
where the writer of this saw it a few weeks after. 



CHAPTER X. 

FIGHT WITH A BEAR ON THE BRINK OF A PRECIPICE. 

One of the most dangerous and exciting encounters 
Wilburn Waters ever had with a bear, occurred on the 
first day of January, 1873, after he was sixty years of age. 
Pie had been making his home for some time with Clark 
Porterfield, of Grayson county, who kept good dogs and 
was as fond of hunting as himself. At the time spoken of, 
Porterfield suggested that they should take a turn in Pine 
mountain, a few miles off, and see if they couldn't hustle 
up something that would pay for the trouble as well as 
afford them a little sport. There having been a good deal 
of rain and snow, the former having frozen before the latter 
fell, it was very difficult to get along, particularly where 
the ground was anything like steep. For this reason, as 
well as his knowledge that the surface of the mountain was 
broken with precipices, chasms, and densely covered with 
dwarf pines and matted vines, Wilburn remonstrated 
against trying it at that time, but finally yielded to his 
companion's importunities. They started out, and had not 
gone very far on one of the spurs before the dogs struck 
a trail and dashed off toward the top of the mountain. 
This put "life and mettle" in Wilburn's heels, and it was 
not long till he left his young and active companion far in 
the rear. Knowing that no "varmint" but a bear would 
seek refuge in a spot so high and rugged, and in an atmos- 



70 WILBURN WATERS. 

phere almost Arctic in its rigor, he hastened on as fast as 
he could, zigzaging along narrow ledges, sometimes losing 
his foot-hold and sliding back many feet until stopped by 
a tree or a rock, and at one place crossing a deep and dan- 
gerous chasm on a tree that had fallen across it, and which 
was incased in ice, he emerged into an open place on the 
mountain-side, and there, within about forty yards of him, 
he saw the two dogs at the root of a tree, and three bears 
in the top, one of them an uncommonly large one. He 
thought it was the grandest sight he ever saw in his life. 
He had his shot-gun with him, for a rarity in a bear-hunt, 
one barrel of which was charged with a musket-ball, 
wrapped with tow to make it fit, and the other with a dozen 
buck-shot. He calculated on killing all three if Porterfield, 
who he heard calling in the distance, should come up in 
time to assist him, and selected the largest for the first fire. 
He first tried the ball, and for the first time in his hunting 
career made a clear miss, the bear taking no more notice 
of it than if he had not fired. He then drew a bead with 
the barrel charged with buck-shot, and at the crack of the 
gun the bear came down the tree in a hurry, disabled one 
dog at the first pass, and seizing the other by the head they 
both glided down to the bottom of a deep gorge as if shot 
from a mortar. Seeing that the dog was no match for his 
powerful and maddened adversary, Wilburn, like shot 
from a shovel, was with them in an instant in the narrow 
bottom of the gorge, with tomahawk^in hand. Before he 
had time to reflect upon the situation, he found himself, as 
he termed it, in a hand-to-hand fight with the bear. The 
bear at once let the dog go, which was too badly hurt to 



WILBURN WATERS. 71 

render any farther assistance, and made at Wilburn in a 
most terrible rage. For .a few rainntes they took it lick 
about, with this difference — Wilburn making every lick 
with his tomahawk tell, while he successfully dodged each 
pass of the bear. While the combat was going on the bear 
was all the time slowly retreating toward a precipice a few 
yards off, from the brink of which he could leap into the 
tree-tops below, and make his escape, and finally made a 
rush for it, when Wilburn, seizing him by the hair, mounted 
him and had a fearful ride for a few jumps. While thus 
seated he gave him the last fatal lick between the eyes with 
his tomahawk, just as he reached the edge of the precipice. 
When the bear fell, his head and fore-feet were hanging 
over. One foot farther, or one lick less, and they both 
would have pitched headlong a hundred feet or more down 
jagged rocks, and the bears and wolves would thereafter 
have prowled and depredated at will in that locality, as 
their mortal foe would have gone to the happy hunting- 
grounds where his fathers and people had long since gone. 
By this time Porterfield came up out of breath and out 
of patience, in not being able to make the connection in 
time to be in at the death of the game. He and Wilburn 
returned to the tree where the latter had left the two bears, 
but they were gone. They had come from the tree, de- 
scended a high and steep cliff, but it was bu intensely cold, 
night coming on, and no dogs able to follow up the trail, 
they were forced to relinquish the hunt. They returned 
to the dead bear, divided and carried it out to where they 
had left a horse, and sometime during the night reached 
the residence of Mr. Porterfield nearly frozen, but happy 



72 WILBURN WATERS. 

in the possession of a bear that weighed nearly four hun- 
dred pounds, and meat for a month that hunters love better 
than any other, and that Wilburn regards, as an Irishman 
does whisky, "the very life of man." 



CHAPTER XI. 

A BEAR HUNT IN THE IRON MOUNTAIN. 

The following was related to the writer by a friend who 
took his first and last bear-hunt with Wilbum Waters 
some years ago. 

Happening to be in Wilburn's dominions one snowy 
November, something less than a dozen years ago, and 
feeling that I could trust my steel-barrel rifle in almost any 
emergency, as well as having a desire to knock up the 
trotters of one bear during a residence of an ordinary life- 
time within sight of their foraging-grounds, I had the 
temerity, without due and sober reflection, to ask him if 
he could'nt get up a chunk of a hunt for my special benefit. 
"Oh, yes," he replied, "there are two pretty good ones in 
the laurel across the ridge yonder — I saw the sign yester- 
day — and if you will take a stand on a branch of the 
mountain in the morning, I'll hustle 'em up and drive 'em 
out to you." 

"All right," said I; "but, Wilburn, I want you to remem- 
ber that I am a novice in bear-craft, and you must be care- 
ful not to send out too many at once." " Don't be uneasy," 
said he, "as one will be about as many as you can manage, 
and I should'nt be surprised if you don't think that he is 
one too many before you are done with him, for they're 
awful troublesome critters sometimes." 

The hunt being determined upon and arranged, we had 



74 WILBURN WATERS. 

bear-rneat, corn-dodgers and wild honey for supper, and 
the long ride through the rarefied air of the mountains that 
day having whetted ray appetite to a pretty keen edge, and 
having stowed too large a portion under ray vest, I was 
fighting, shooting at, and running from bears the livelong 
night, in ray troubled dreams, and rose from my bed of 
skins in the morning with very serious misgivings as to 
the wisdom of bear-hunts in general, and of the present 
one in particular. But, having of my own free will and 
accord proposed it, and Wilburn having cheerfully and 
promptly acceded to it, I had no alternative but to "screw 
my courage to the sticking point," and go into it whether 
I got the bear or the bear should get me. We had an 
early breakfast, but somehow or other my appetite was not 
as sharp as it was the night before, and an involuntary 
nervousness would occasionally creep over me, when I 
thought of what a dangerous animal a hunted and mad- 
dened bear was, and which I could not dispel by more than 
one libation of "mountain dew" which I usually carried 
with me in my rambles, as an antidote for snake bites! 

Everything being ready, we swung our accoutrements 
around us, threw our guns across our shoulders, Wilburn 
whistled up his dogs, and off we started. For the first 
mile or two he diverted my thoughts by instructing me 
how to act in presence of bruin, and how and where to 
shoot as he approached me, during which time I stepped 
along lightly enough, and paid but little attention to the 
spurs and cliffs over and around which we had been climb- 
ing; but after walking along thus for about four miles, 
the laurel in which the bears held their revel came in view, 



WILBURN WATERS. 75 

when all at once, though not without serious premonitory 
symptoms, my feet began to feel exceedingly heavy, and I 
entertained very solemn doubts as to whether there was so 
very much sport in bear-hunting after all, particularly where 
the chances were about equal of being eaten or to eat — the 
difference, if any, in my opinion, being rather in favor of 
the bear. My spirits, too, began to flag very perceptibly, 
and though I tried, I could not attribute my feelings to the 
weather, for, although the earth was covered with snow, 
the morning was bright and balmy, the sun shone out in 
all his splendor, and the crystalized dew-drops hanging 
upon the foliage of the tall hemlocks, sparkled like gems 
in the tresses of an oriental bride. The red-birds, all 
dressed in crimson sheen, flitted in happy glee from spray 
to spray, the squirrels played their wild gambols among 
the bespangled tree-tops, and all living creatures around 
me seemed to be as happy as a bevy of holiday-dressed 
children at a Sabbath-school festival. I, however, had no 
relish for the grand and. beautiful, for of all animated 
nature in the wild-wood that lovely morning, I alone was 
to run the risk of being eaten by a bear ! 

At length we came to the place where I was to take my 
stand. It was a wild, silent spot upon the mountain-side, 
a few paces from the edge of the laurel where bears "most 
do congregate," and as soon as Wilburn left me and dis- 
appeared in the jungle, I began to feel very uncomfort- 
able — a sort of weakness about the waistbands of my 
pants — and very earnestly reasoned with myself whether 
or not it was right and proper to stand behind a tree and 
murder an innocent bear in cold blood while going about 



76 WILBURN WATERS. 

his legitimate business! The more I thought about it the 
worse I felt, until my knees grew singularly weak, and if I 
did'nt have an old-fashioned shake of ague, it was some- 
thins; so near akin to it that I couldn't well tell the diffe- 
rence; but when, a few minutes after, the perspiration 
broke out all over me in great big beads, I was ready to 
be qualified that I had the real bona fide Arkansas fever 
and ague, and thought it not only in very bad taste, but 
criminally imprudent, for a man in such a wretched state 
of health as I was at that moment, to be standing away out 
there on the mountain-side without a physician, or quinine, 
or a bottle of French brandy. 

Whilst ruminating upon my condition, and the more 
serious probabilities of killing a bear or of a bear killing 
me — i n w hich I had a very decided choice, notwithstanding 
the maxim that "it is a bad rule that don't work both 
wavs " — I heard the bay of Wilburn's dogs in the distance, 
and all at once the skin of my head felt as tight as a raw 
hide on a banjo, and it seemed to me that I would never 
be able to shut my eyes again, though I never had better 
reason to keep them as wide open as possible. I would 
have felt more comfortable under an oyster-shell at the 
bottom of the ocean. Looking and listening with the most 
intense interest, I heard the tread of something coming 
that seemed to be as heavy as the march of an elephant, 
and I felt as if I had taken a new lease of life when the 
formidable animal proved to be a boomer, a species of 
mountain squirrel. Whilst wondering how so small an 
animal could make so big a racket, I heard the report 
of Wilburn's rifle away down in the jungle, and my 



WILBURN WATEKS. 77 

heart raised in thankfulness with the hope that there 
was one bear less to make a dinner off ray bones that 
day. Another report soon followed, which instead of 
relieving my anxiety in like ratio, suggested the appre- 
hension that Wilburn, instead of killing a bear, had prob- 
ably only wounded one, and if so, and he should come 
across me on his way to the cliffs above, I had better be 
preparing my nerves for a steady aim, or saying my prayers, 
or perhaps both. With this unwelcome thought intruding 
itself, I grasped my rifle with a tenacity that a young earth- 
quake could scarcely have shaken loose, and with a deter- 
mination that nothing but desperation could have imparted 
and awaited the coming of the last thing I wanted to see 
on the face of this green earth — the very bear I had gone 
out voluntarily and purposely to kill ! While standing thus 
with one foot rather unsteadily planted in front, the breech 
of the rifle to my shoulder, and my eye running alono- the 
barrel, a hand was laid upon my shoulder from behind, and 
a voice, which I at once recognized as Wil burn's, said, in 
the sweetest tones to which I had ever listened — "Stop, 
friend, hadn't you better spiking your triggers and cock your 
gun before you shoot f — but you needn't waste your ammuni- 
tion; I've killed two bears down in the laurel, and there 
isn't another within ten miles of here!" 

If I ever felt happier in my life I have forgotten the 
time, place and circumstances; my knees became firm and 
steady; I was all right about the waistbands; the cold sweat 
had vanished like the dew of the morning; I could ODen 
and shut my eyes with the facility of a frog, and have not 
felt a symptom of fever and ague from that day to this. 



CHAPTER XII. 

AN ADVENTURE WITH A MAD WOLF. 

Some thirty-odd years ago, when the writer of these 
pages spent a large portion of his time in the woods and 
mountains that might have been more profitably employed 
in more useful pursuits, it fell to his lot, one pleasant day 
in autumn, to be in a deer drive with Uncle Billy Stevens, 
of Drutor's Valley, who was long known by most of the 
citizens of Abingdon, as well as by a majority of the men 
of Washington county, as a genial, honest, warm-hearted 
old man, who loved his friends and his grog, and was ever 
ready to let the plough stand in the furrow or the mash in 
the still-tub, when a friend called upon him for a hunt. 
On one occasion, as before said, it fell to the lot of Uncle 
Billy and the writer to be the drivers in a big deer-hunt 
on the South Fork of Holston. We had gone out into the 
mountain some distance, leading half a dozen dogs each, 
with several out in advance hunting up a trail, and as we 
ascended a spur, the loose dogs struck up their music, 
dashed off eagerly and soon disappeared in a direction 
contrary to that usually taken by deer — in the opposite 
direction from water. "I wish I may go to heaven, honey," 
said Uncle Billy, " if the dogs haven't hustled up a varmint 
of some sort, for a deer wouldn't gallop right straight off 
from the river as warm a day as this is, with four dogs 
behind him." 



WILBURS' WATERS. 79 

We kept on up the spur, but hadn't gone very far 
before we met the dogs trotting back with their tails 
down and the hair on their backs turned the wrong way. 
"There!" exclaimed Uncle Billy, "I told you so, and 
there's nary devil if they haven't jumped a wolf or a bear, 
and are frightened into fits." We kept on, the dogs fol- 
lowing us very timidly and suspiciously, and soon came 
to a bed in the leaves in a patch of laurel, which, as soon 
as Uncle Billy saw, he put his hand in it and exclaimed, 
"By Jingo, they've jumped a wolf sure enough, and the 
bed is as warm as a skillet. Let's get away from here on 
to another spur, or we'll have no sport to-day, and them 
darned dogs that's been frightened won't get as far from 
us as our shadows for fear the infernal varmint will eat 
'em up." 

We changed our course, made our way farther into the 
recesses of the mountain, turned our dogs all out, a few at 
a time; started two or three deer towards the river where 
the standers were stationed, and made our way back to the 
settlements. On arriving at the cabin of Davy Stevens, a 
brother of Uncle Billy's, and telling him about the wolf, 
he remarked that the part of the mountain where the dogs 
had jumped him was, in his younger days, the greatest 
wolf-range in all this country, and then went on to relate 
an adventure he had with a mad wolf many years before, 
and which will be related in his own words, as near as the 
writer can recollect them. 

"Some forty years ago," said he, "I went out to a cave 
in the mountain to salt a few cattle I had in the range. I 
rarely ventured far in that direction without my gun, as 



80 WILBURN WATERS. 

bears and wolves were as plenty at that day as rabbits are 
now, but as I had to carry a poke of salt and a heavy bell 
and collar to put on an old ox among the herd, I had to 
leave ray rifle at home. A heavy rain coming up, I was 
detained some time in a hollow tree, and by the time I had 
gathered together and salted my cattle, the sun had disap- 
peared beyond the hills. I started out towards home, and 
as I topped the Double spur I heard a faint howl in a deep 
gorge some distance in my rear, but it was so faint I couldn't 
tell exactly what it it was — whether a dog, a wolf or a big 
owl. Stopping a few moments to listen, the sound became 
more distinct and seemed to be coming rapidly nearer. I 
now knew it to be the howl of a wolf, and from the direc- 
tion the animal was taking, it was evident he was following 
my track. I thought this very strange, as a wolf is a 
cowardly cuss, avoids the track of a man, and skulks from 
his presence. I at once concluded it must be famished, 
and wanted to make a supper off my bones. This thought 
made my feet feel very light, and I didn't let much grass 
grow under 'em as I ran down the spur, leaping rocks and 
logs like a buck. Before I reached the bottom I heard 
the wolf top the ridge precisely where I had crossed it, and 
start directly down the spur which I was just leaving. 
Fright gave me speed, and reaching a low place where the 
heavy shower a few hours before had left a pond some 
twelve or fifteen feet in diameter around a big hemlock, 
the limbs of which grew out to within a few feet of the 
ground, and finding from his howls that the wolf had 
gained upon me very rapidly, I waded in and climbed the 
tree. The sun was just about setting, and I had scarcely 



WILBUKN "WATERS. 81 

hidden myself as well as I could among the foliage, when 
the wolf, one of the largest I had ever seen, came bound- 
ing along on my track, with long flakes of yellow foam 
streaming from his mouth, and eyes like two balls of fire. 
He was so intent on overtaking me, and running with 
such eagerness, that he overran the trail some distance, and 
finding himself at fault, he circled round awhile, and then 
came back to the edge of the pond where he had lost my 
track, which he was now unable to find. He looked in 
every direction, and perhaps scenting me, trotted around 
the pond a time or two, and then raised a long, tremulous, 
melancholy howl. By this time darkness was beginning 
to fall upon the scene, and I arrived at the unpleasant 
conclusion that I was to have my lodging place for the 
night among the limbs of that hemlock. After remaining 
some ten or fifteen minutes, as if conscious that I was 
somewhere near, and as if undetermined what to do under 
the circumstances, he took the back-track and galloped off 
slowly up the spur we had come down less than an hour 
before, howling at intervals, and when I heard him cross 
the summit, and the last faint echo of his receding howl 
died away as he descended the opposite side, I dropped out 
of my perch and took to my heels like a quarter-nag. In 
an hour I was safe and snng inside of my cabin. 

"Being pretty well broken down by my long and ex- 
citing foot-race, it was not long till I was in bed and fast 
asleep. Abont midnight a terrible storm came up, and 
right in the midst of it, while the lightning was flashing, 
the thunder pealing and the wind shrieking, I heard a 
6 



82 WILBUEN WATERS. 

tremendous rumpus in the yard between my two big curs 
and some sort of a varmint. I got up and went to the 
door, but the night was so dark I could see nothing, though 
the dogs seemed to be in a death struggle with something 
that appeared to be a match for them. I lighted a torch 
and stepped out, and there, within a few feet of me, stood 
the very wolf I had seen in the mountain, viciously snap- 
ping at the dogs as they held him at bay. A wolf is afraid 
of fire, but notwithstanding the torch in my hand he 
rushed towards me with great fury and foaming at the 
mouth like a mad dog, when the dogs clinched him behind 
and stopped him. I at once saw that he was mad, for I 
knew that a wolf that had his senses about him would 
never have come into the yard to such severe dogs, or rush 
at a man with a fire-brand in his hand. I stepped back 
into the cabin and got my rifle, and holding the torch in 
my left hand along the barrel I put a bullet between his 
eyes, which settled his hash, aud then went back to bed. 

"Next morning I rose early and went out and found 
that my dogs were both badly hurt, torn aud bleeding in 
various places. Fearing that my suspicions of the wolf 
being mad might be correct, I chained them and went to 
doctoring their wounds. In less than two weeks both of 
them took the hydrophobia and I had to put an end to 
their sufferings with the same rifle that ended the career 
of the mad wolf." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ADVENTURE WITH A FOUR-PRONGED BUCK IN THE HOLSTON. 

The writer hopes to be pardoned for giving a narration 
of an exciting adventure in which he acted a prominent 
part. A number of years ago, when I was a younger and 
much more active man than I am at present, it fell to my 
lot to participate in a deer-drive that came very near being 
my last. 

Colonel Addison White, at that time a representative in 
Congress from Kentucky, and now a resident of Hunts- 
ville, Alabama, was spending a few weeks in Abingdon 
(of which he is a native), and as he was, as he still is, a 
genial, whole-souled gentleman, a splendid shot, and pas- 
sionately fond of hunting, those of his friends here who 
kept hounds and were as fond of the sport as himself, made 
up a hunt for his gratification, and repaired to the moun- 
tains with a tent and such creature comforts, both solid 
and liquid, as were deemed necessary for a sojourn of 
several days in the woods. Arriving at the bank of the 
river, some dozen miles from town, we pitched our tent, 
made a huge fire of logs in front of the opening, partook 
of supper, and fed the waiting hounds all standing round 
in couples. This accomplished, some stretched themselves 
upon their blankets, others amused themselves at "Old 
Sledge" and other pastimes, while the '" drivers," of whom 
I happened to be one, divided the dogs among them, filled 



84 WILBUEN WATERS. 

their haversacks and bottles, and for the purpose of making 
as early a start as possible, proceeded to the mountain, a 
few miles away, to rest beneath the tall hemlocks, where, 
deprived of the hilarity and good cheer of the encampment, 
they enjoyed the soothing influences of the "voices of the 
night." 

For the information of the reader who may not be fam- 
iliar with the modus operandi of a deer-drive, it may not 
be out of place to give a brief explanation : All except 
the drivers take stands. Deer, in warm weather, usually 
seek the highest, coolest and most inaccessible peaks in the 
mountains, and when started from their lairs run certain 
well-known routes, and make for the nearest stream, at 
certain points or crossings, which hunters call "stands." 
Nine deer out of ten, and nine times out of ten, if started 
in the same range, will make directly for these crossings, 
which are all known to practical hunters. 

On the occasion referred to, Colonel White was stationed 
at one of the best stands on the bank of the Holston, 
and it fell to my lot, as before stated, to be one of the 
drivers. Early in the morning, while all was serene and 
quiet, and the wild-flowers were budding beneath the 
moisture that nature had distilled upon them during the 
night, I untethered my canine companions and started them 
out upon their mission. They had trailed off but a short 
distance, when they "opened" in lively and eager chorus, 
soon jumped a large four-pronged buck, in full view from 
where I was standing, which, from the direction he took, 
I was satisfied would attempt to cross the river at the stand 
occupied by Colonel White. Believing this, I followed on 



WILBURN WATERS. 85 

as rapidly as possible, and was surprised when I reached 
the river and had crossed to the stand to learn from the 
Colonel that he had neither heard a dog nor seen a deer. 
But, while we were talking about it, we heard a solitary 
dog coming down the bank of the stream, on the side we 
were on, and a moment after we saw the buck — the same 
I had seen in the mountain several hours before — going 
out on the opposite side, one hundred and eighty yards 
above, as was subsequently ascertained by actual measure- 
ment. The deer, not being as closely pressed as is some- 
times the case, had circled around awhile in the hills, 
crossed above through an unguarded stand, and was now 
trying to elude the dogs by recrossing the river and making 
back toward the mountain. But, as before said, we saw 
him going out on the opposite side, one hundred and eighty 
yards above us, and seeing that Colonel White was about 
to shoot, I suggested that the game was too far off and 
running too fast for a rifle, and that he would miss him, 
but he replied he would be sure to miss him if he didn't 
shoot, and blazed away. The buck, with as much noncha- 
lance as if nothing had happened, shook the water from 
his flanks and disappeared in the undergrowth. My own 
impression was that the ball had not reached him, but the 
Colonel contended that he had struck him, and that the 
wound was fatal, as he had seen the mist fly from his hair 
at the crack of the gun. To settle the question beyond 
cavil, I took the dog, which had came to us a few minutes 
after the buck had disappeared, knowing that if he had 
been wounded he would not go far from the river, and 
started across. Coaxing the dog along as I waded into the 



86 WILBURN WATERS. 

stream backward, which was about one hundred and fifty 
yards wide, deep and rapid — being swollen by recent rains — 
I fell backward over a sunken ruck, and of course went 
under, neck and heels. Belonging, as I did, to that branch 
of the church militant, sometimes sacreligiously termed 
"web-footed," because they maintain the "Apostolic doc- 
trine of immersion," I didn't mind practicing what I 
preached, but struck out, swam across, followed by the 
dog, and put him upon the track, the Colonel meanwhile 
remaining at his post. As soon as the dog found the trail 
and started, I "shed my linen" and so forth, and spread 
them out on the bank to dry. Whilst thus divested, and 
meditating upon the uncouth and uncomfortable appear- 
ance our first parents must have presented before they 
learned the art of sewing fig-leaves together, I heard the 
dog in full tongue, circling around toward the river a short 
distance above me. For the purpose of heading the game 
down stream towards where the Colonel was standing, I 
started up the bank, but coming to a rugged cliff, bristling 
with a formidable growth of bamboo briars, I concluded 
it would not be very pleasant to pass through them in the 
unprotected and delicate condition in which I happened to 
be at the moment, and plunged into the stream for the pur- 
pose of swimming around the barrier. Just as I had got- 
ten about half-way along the cliff, I heard a racket above, 
and looking up I saw the buck, with the dog hanging to 
him, suspended between "wind and water," and the next 
instant the buck, dog and myself were about as near being 
in a pile as three animals could well be in five feet water. 
Knowing that a wounded buck was dangerous, or even at 



WILBURN WATERS. 87 

bay when not wounded, and that I was bound to "go up 
the spout" or to the bottom of the stream if the dog didn't 
save me, and seeing the enraged animal turn toward me 
with his blazing black eyes and hair all turned the wrong 
way, I called upon the dog as loudly and as earnestly as 
ever a man called upon a friend in a pinch, and he re- 
sponded nobly. He swam up and seized the buck by the 
throat, but was stricken to the bottom in an instant, and 
when he again appeared on the surface, he was at least 
twenty feet from where he went under. Meantime the 
buck was approaching me with all the ferocity of a tiger, 
and I retreating as fast as a man could retreat in water up 
to his chin — I had no time to swim — when the dog again 
grappled him behind, and they had it round and round in 
the current, the dog holding his grip with a tenacity that 
proved he comprehended the difficulties of the situation. 
Here the scene became exciting, and, unlike the woman 
who, when she saw her husband and a bear fighting, said 
she didn't care which whipped, I must confess I had a very 
decided choice. The tussel lasted several minutes, and I 
became so much interested in it, and had so much sympathy 
for one of the combatants, that I forgot my danger, when 
I had ample time to get out of the water and take a tree 
if I found it necessary. Colonel White, hearing the melee 
in the water, came up, waded into the stream up to his 
arm-pits, held the muzzle of his gun to the buck's head 
and fired, and the first I knew of his presence was the re- 
port of his rifle and seeing the buck float off with a bullet 
in his head. On getting the deer out on dry land we found 
that the Colonel had given him a fatal shot the first time, 



88 WILBUEN WATERS. 

the ball having entered his flank and ranging diagonally 
through his body had lodged under the skin behind the 
opposite fore-leg. A right good shot with a rifle at one 
hundred and eighty yards, and the game at full speed. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ANOTHER ADVENTURE WITH A WOUNDED BUCK. 

The writer having related one hunting adventure in 
which he himself particpated, he is tempted to narrate one 
more — and only one more. 

A number of years ago I had two friends living not far 
from the Iron mountain, where most of my hunting was 
done, by the names of William B. and David L. Clark. 
They were brothers, and always ready for a hunt or any 
other kind of adventure in which there was sport or excite- 
ment. William, at the time of which I write, had a good 
farm, an interesting family, kept horses and hounds, was 
the most daring and successful in all this mountain region 
except Wilburn Waters— and even excelled him in deer- 
driving — and all the hunters within miles, when they felt 
like enjoying something extra in the sporting line, flocked 
to his hospitable and pleasant home, where they knew the 
latch-string always hung on the outside. Not only so, but 
he was the best marksman as well as the best driver in all 
the mountains, and was always ready, no matter what else 
might be on hand, to take a hunt with a friend. He was 
one of nature's noblemen, and positively, and by odds, in 
my opinion, the best man I ever knew, in any and every 
sense; and I here take occasion to pay his memory this 
passing tribute, because he has gone to the land of sha- 
dows — his life, in the prime of his manhood, was laid upon 



90 WILBURN WATERS. 

his country's altar in defence of the "Lost Cause." He 
was not a professor of religion, though I always thought 
he professed it in the natural way. He had a heart in him 
big enough for the Giant of Gath, a benevolence and dis- 
interestedness as pure as the mountain and the lake, a hand 
as open as the day — in a word, he was the only man I ever 
knew in whom I could not suggest some improvement 
were he to be "reconstructed." 

PL's brother David, now a citizen of High Point, North 
Carolina, and an artist of some celebrity, was younger, un- 
married, and lived with him, and was somewhat like him 
in some of his characteristics. He also had a passion for 
hunting, but while the former rarely wasted time and am- 
munition upon smaller game, "all were fish that came into 
the net" of the latter, from a snow-bird to a big owl, or 
from a squirrel to a bear. He usually carried both a rifle 
and a shot-gun, with a tomahawk and a butcher-knife, so 
as to be prepared for whatever might come in the way. He 
was as fearless as a Turk, and was one of our most success- 
ful hunters. 

These two friends and myself had arranged for a hunt 
among ourselves, and I rode over to their home, nine miles 
off, in the night, to have an early start to the mountain next 
morning. I had been hunting a long time, but always 
preferring the post of "driver," had never had the pleasure 
of killing a deer. William Clark was to do the driving on 
this occasion, and David and myself were to occupy the 
stands. It was a bright and bracing morning, and a shower 
the night before had so dampened the earth as to enable the 
dogs to trail without difficulty. As I had never killed a 



WILBURN WATERS. 91 

deer, I was anxious to make sure work of it, and had pre- 
pared myself with a large shot-gun, six feet in the barrel, 
and carrying twenty-four buck-shot. I occupied the best 
stand, as the brothers were more anxious, if possible, than I 
was myself, that I should "bag the game." I posted my- 
self with my back against a double tree on the bank of 
the river, where the stream was some one hundred and 
fifty yards wide, and with my heart thumping and my 
fingers itching to pull the trigger, I awaited the coming 
of the game, which I was sure would come, for William 
Clark never failed to do what he promised, and he had 
promised to send me a deer that morning. I was not kept 
long in suspense. Listening very intently, I heard a chug 
in the water, and looking toward the opposite bank I saw 
a very large buck dashing through the rocky and turbid 
stream directly towards me. To my excited vision he 
looked as large as a three-year old steer, with a heavy and 
wide-spreading head of horns. I stood as motionless as 
the double tree against which I was leaning, and waited 
till he came within fifty yards, when I drew a bead and 
let him have it right in the face, his body being in the 
water. At the crack of the gun we both fell — it shot at 
both ends ! It kicked me — the gun, not the buck — into 
the fork of the tree, where I was as tight and fast as a 
glut in a rail-cut. 

Here was a pretty predicament to be in, squirming and 
twisting like a worm on a hook in the fork of the tree, 
and a wounded buck only a few feet off. "While trying to 
wriggle myself loose, I could distinctly hear the frenzied 
animal floundering in the water, and momentarily expected 



92 WILBURN WATERS. 

to feel his antlers, though I couldn't see him, and to receive 
a wound which I would never be able to see without per- 
formins: one of the feats of the India-rubber man in Old 
John Robinson's Circus, was rather more than I had bar- 
gained for, or was willing to put up with. I finally cork- 
screwed myself out, and there was the buck, not a dozen 
yards from where my load of buck-shot met him, flounder- 
ing and charging round among the rocks, and seeming to 
be doubtful as to what direction he ought to take. I pro- 
ceeded to reload — being careful to be more moderate in 
my charge — and stepping away from the forked tree as a 
criminal would from the stocks, and was about to fire the 
second time when I heard the report of David's rifle a 
few feet off, which put an end to the capers of my buck, 
and took away exactly half of my laurels. 

On getting the buck out of the water we found that 
seventeen out of my twenty-four buck-shot had penetrated 
his face and head, and both eyes were shot out. I have 
never since put twenty-four buck-shot in a gun, and have 
never fired one with my back to a forked tree. 



CHAPTER XV. 

AMUSING ADVENTURES WITH BEARS. 

The following short chapter, comprising a couple of 
anecdotes, may or may not be strictly true, but the writer 
gives them as they were related to him, and was acquainted 
with the characters named. The reader can either peruse 
or skip it, as he will not gain much by reading, or lose 
much by not reading. 

Not a great many years ago there were living in Wash- 
ington county, within fifteen miles of Abingdon, twooldgen- 
tlemen, by the names of John R. and James H., familiarly 
called by their neighbors "Uncle Johnny" and "Uncle 
Jimmy." They lived near together, not far from the base 
of the Iron mountain. The first was an old and expe- 
rienced bear-hunter, but the other, although he had some 
aspirations in that direction, had never been so fortunate 
as to get into a successful hunt. Uncle Johnny, having 
been out one day to salt his cattle on the range, came 
across fresh -bear sign, and meeting with Uncle Jimmy as he 
was hastening home for his dogs and gun, told the latter he 
would give him an opportunity of killing a bear if he 
would go with him. "All right — I'm in," replied Uncle 
Jimmy, "that's one thing I've been wanting to do, for lo! 
these many years." They soon got ready and started out. 
About half-way up the mountain, the dogs in advance of 
them brought something to bay, and the two old men 



94 WILBURN WATERS. 

hastening up found that they had treed a good-sized bear. 
"Just hold on-, Jimmy/' said Uncle Johnny, "till I put a 
bullet through his smeller, which will bring him down 
out of there quicker than no time — for a bear can't stand 
to be touched at either end — and as soon as he touches the 
ground the dogs, who understand their business, will seize 
him by each side of his head and hold him as tight as if 
he was in a dead-fall; when you can take my butcher- 
knife and cut his throat." "All right, I'm in," repeated 
Uncle Jimmy, "and if I don't open the cuss' juglar, you 
may shoot me with a pack-saddle." The bullet was fired, 
the nose split, and down came bruin to the foot of the tree. 
As Uncle Johnny had predicted, the dogs seized him on 
each side, as he sat upright against the tree. "Now's your 
time," exclaimed Uncle Johnny, "just walk up and cut 
his throat; he can't hurt you, for the dogs will hang to 
him like a sticking-plaster, and won't let go till it thun- 
ders." "All right, I'm in," repeated Uncle Jimmy, and 
cautiously walking up to do his part of the work, he at- 
tempted to lay his left hand on top of the bear's head 
while he cut his throat with the right, when bruin seized 
him by the left arm, which so much surprised and alarmed 
him, that he stood as motionless as if paralyzed, with knife 
upraised but without attempting to strike. Uncle Johnny, 
seeing how matters stood and growing impatient, exclaimed 
"Jimmy, why in the dickens don't you cut the cuss' 
throat?" " Why don't I?" rejoined Uncle Jimmy; "why 
don't you see the darned thing's a bitin'?" 

Uncle Jimmy finally comprehended the situation, and 
very naturally concluded that now, if ever, was the time 



WILBURN WATERS. 95 

for action, cut the bear's head nearly off with one swipe, 
and escaped with slight injury. As long as he lived he 
loved to relate his adventure with that "cussed bar." 

The other anecdote is about as follows: 

Soon after the close of the war, a very large bear, in 
crossing from one mountain to another, passed near Abing- 
don. Some of the young men armed themselves, called 
up their dogs, mounted their horses and were soon on the 
trail. Some few miles from town, in close pursuit, they 
passed through the farm of a good old citizen, who hap- 
pened to be out in one of his fields, with his dog follow- 
ing him. Hearing the noise of the chase, and looking 
up he saw the bear floundering through the snow and com- 
ing directly towards him. Being unarmed, and not ex- 
actly ready to be eaten just at that moment, he sprang to 
the fence a few feet off, and climbed to the top of a stake, 
determined to give the bear as wide a berth as possible. 
While thus perched, the stake gave way at the bottom and 
pitched him to the ground face-foremost. It occurred to 
him very suddenly that he had heard or read that a bear 
would not molest a dead body, and that he might escape 
by feigning to be in that condition. His fall frightened 
the bear and turned him in another direction, but his own 
dog, not exactly understanding the strategy of his master, 
ran up and began to smell about him as he lay upon his 
face in the snow. Thinking it was the bear, and that the 
critical moment had come when "to be or not to be" was 
the great problem with him, he lay as motionless as pos- 
sible, and thus, in suppressed and sepulchral tones, ad- 
dressed the supposed monster: — " Go on, bear, go on — the 



96 WILBURN WATERS. 

hunters will hill you if you stop — besides, I'm dead — have 
been dead a week — and ain't Jit to eat no how ! " 

The young man who had approached and heard this 
earnest appeal to the supposed bear, was never forgiven for 
having divulged it, as long as the worthy farmer lived. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

FIEST WHITE SETTLER IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 

We now come to the third division of subjects to be 
treated — the first settlers on Holston and the subsequent 
history of Southwestern Virginia. 

Tradition informs us that the first white adventurer who 
made his home in the Valley of Holston, was an English- 
man by the name of St. Clair, who had ingratiated him- 
self with the Indians, and erected his cabin near where the 
old Church stands at St. Clair's Bottom, in what is now 
Smyth county. At what period he fixed his home there is 
not known,* but it is supposed to have been about the time 
of Braddock's defeat, which was in 1755 

Between 1755 and 1760, an enterprising gentleman by 
the name of Patton v made his way westward of the line of 
civilization, and appeared on the head waters of the Hol- 
ston. He was accompanied by three relatives, two by the 
name of Buchanan, v and one by the name of Campbell 
besides some two or three other persons. From Mr. Patton 
and the three others named, sprang the families who first 
peopled this end of the State. The Buchanans intermarried 
with the Pattons, and Campbell was the father of General 
William Campbell, of King's mountain memory. From 
these sprang the Prestons, Floyds and Thompsons, who 
subsequently owned the Saltworks, Burk's Garden, and all 
7 



98 WILBURN WATERS. 

that magnificent boundary including the Seven Mile Ford, 
the estate of Mr. James M.Byars and all the intermediate 
lands. 

Mr. Patton and his associates came with compass and 
chain, for the purpose of "spying out the land," and sur- 
veying and locating such portions as promised to become 
unusually valuable in the future. Somewhere in the 
vicinity of what is now known as Seven Mile Ford, they 
met with St. Clair, a white man in Indian garb, on a hunt- 
ing and trapping expedition. Surprised to find a white 
man where they supposed themselves the first of the race 
who had ventured thus far into the wilderness. Mr. Pat- 
ton questioned him as to his knowledge of the country, 
and was astonished as well as gratified to find him a man 
of more than ordinary intelligence, an experienced woods- 
man, and familiar with all that broad belt of rich lands 
between the Apalachian and Cumberland mountains. 

Mr. Patton proposed to employ him both as a guide 
and a protection against the Indians, provided they should 
meet with them during their stay upon this, one of their 
favorite hunting grounds. St. Clair informed him that to 
survey the lands would be a dangerous undertaking and 
might forfeit the lives of the whole company should the red 
men catch them at it, but that he would show him the 
choicest sections and guarantee the safety of the company ? 
on condition that after Mr. Patton should have located 
such boundaries as he might desire, he would survey and 
enter a certain boundary for him (St. Clair) which he 
would show him. Mr. Patton of course agreed to this, 
especially as it was "Hobson's choice" with him. The 



WILBURN WATERS. 99 

agreement being settled, Mr. Patton surveyed and took 
possession of the large boundary where they were then 
standing, including the magnificent estates above mentioned. 

They then proceeded to the "Lick" where the Saltworks 
are now situated, and where the aborigines had been making 
salt from seeps from time immemorial, near the present 
residence of Mr. Palmer, the whole of that beautiful and 
rich alluvial bottom then being a lake. Several thousand 
acres were here surveyed and located. (They then proceeded 
up the North Fork of Holston, and appropriated all that 
valuable land in Rich Valley comprising the estate of Cap- 
tain Charles Taylor, and others adjacent. This, it may be 
thought,. should have satisfied the most extravagant covet- 
ousness for the acquisition of lands, but Mr. Patton was 
still desirous of securing more, when they, with great diffi- 
culty, crossed what are now known as Flat-top and Church 
mountains, and laid their chains upon that immense and 
valuable blue-grass boundary known as the Cove, and now 
in the possession of the Bowens, Barnses, and others, in 
Tazewell county. 

Partially satisfied for the time being, and winter warning 
them of its approach, Mr. Patton proposed that they should 
return to the Valley .of Holston, and survey and locate for 
St. Clair the boundary for which he had stipulated. They 
accordingly retraced their way back across the mountains 
to the South Fork, where St. Clair pointed out the coveted 
boundary, which included all the land along the river, 
especially on the south side, which is now known as St. 
Clair's Bottom, then covered with splendid timber, full of 
pure, bold springs, and abounding with cane and nutritious 
wild grasses. 



100 WILBUEN WATERS. 

Not long subsequent to this, Mr. Patton met in his 
rambles the pioneer Burk, who revealed to him the dis- 
covery he had made of that magnificent body of land ever 
since known as Burjrsjjrarden, in Tazewell county. From 
the description given him Mr. Patton was captivated, and 
proposed to the discoverer if he would show it to him, and 
if it proved to be half as valuable as represented, he would 
be at all the expense of surveying, platting and entering it, 
and lay off such portion of it to him (Burk) as he might 
designate. Burk, being a poor man, readily entered into 
the arrangement, but the whole of the Garden, the arable 
portion of which comprises some fifty thousand acres, 
eventually came into Patton's possession, was inherited by 
a grandson bearing his name, and squandered in dissipation 
by the possessor, who died at twenty-eight years of age. 
One thousand acres in that Garden is now a fortune for a 
man of reasonable desires. Mr. Patton thus secured all 
the finest lands on the principal sources of the broad and 
beautiful Tennessee, and yet, although the third generation 
has not passed away, scarcely an acre of his vast and 
splendid domain is now in possession of his descendants. 

It was not many years after Mr. Patton's first adventure, 
before settlements began to appear at and near Abingdon. 
A man by the name of Harper, who lived the lonely life 
of a hermit, erected a cabin and cleared a patch in the 
lower end of Druton's Valley. Another, by the name of 
Sharp, made an entry a few miles west of him, not far 
from the Virginia and Tennessee line. One of the first 
settlers at Wolf Hills — now Abingdon — if not the very 
first, was a[man by the name of Black, whose cabin was 
near the base of the hill, a short distance south of the pre- 



WILBURN WATERS. 101 

sent residence of Colonel A. C. Cummings. The neigh- 
borhood took the name of Wolf Hills from the fact that 
the headquarters of these animals were in a cave &n the 
lot and in rear of the residence of Mrs. A. E. Campbell. 
Dr. Smith, who is supposed to have been the next settler 
after Mr. Black, built his house about the year 1760 on 
the lot now owned and occupied by Henry S. Preston, Esq. 
When Captain Conn came to Abingdon before the Revo- 
lution, Dr. Smith had been dead some years, and his widow 
was keeping a public house. Captain Conn boarded with 
and afterwards married her. She was a native of South 
Carolina. 

In 1786 Abingdon was a smart little village with two 
hotels — one on the lot occupied by the family of Thaddeus 
S. Hains, deceased, and the other on the spot now occu- 
pied by Messrs. Keller & Hines as a liquor saloon : the 
first kept by Trooper Armstrong, and the latter by Mrs. 
McDonald. The first court was held in a grove of hickory 
saplings on the brow of the hill in rear of Mr. Greenway's 
store, and the first courthouse was in the middle of the 
maiu and cross streets near the present courthouse. The 
oldest house now in Abingdon is that occupied by the 
Weed Sewing Machine Company, opposite Mr. Greenway's 
store. There was no house west of it in the village limit. 
From this westward nearly to the creek was a wild plum 
and chinquapin thicket, interspersed with large timber, 
chiefly white oak. On the corner now occupied by the 
store of Messrs. Aston & Honaker stood William Green- 
way's blacksmith shop, who excelled in the manufacture 
of sickles. The next house on the same side of Main 
street east, was a log cabin, used for a store in front and a 



102 WILBUKN WATERS. 

dwelling in rear, on the lot now occupied by Mr. James 
W. Preston, then owned by a man by the name of Freel. 
There was no house east of this except that of Mrs. Smith, 
before mentioned. On the opposite, or south side of the 
street, the first house east was where the Washington 
House now stands, and was occupied by Dr. Grass, and 
upon this lot were born the elder F. P. Blair and General 
Armstrong, Secretary of War under President Madison. 
A man by the name of Wise lived upon the lot now occu- 
pied by the Arlington House. James Redpath, a carpen- 
ter, lived where the handsome brick residence of Dr. R. 
J. Preston now stands, and the corner was occupied by 
Kit Achlin, who kept a dead-fall even at that early day, 
and he has had many a successor in Abingdon. William 
Brice built a house where the Colonnade now rears its 
stately walls, but it was burnt down in a short time. These 
comprised nearly all of Abingdon in 1786. 

In 1798 Henry Clay and Captain Henry St. John 
Dixon came to Abingdon together for the purpose of set- 
tling, provided the country suited them. The former, 
after looking around for a week or two, proceeded on to Ken- 
tucky, where his mother had settled after her second mar- 
riage, and the latter, having become acquainted with the 
family of Mr. Dick White, on the farm now owned by 
Mr. W. H. Betts, married one of his daughters, and lived 
for many years where the Stonewall Jackson Institute now 
stands. 

These facts, which the writer has from reliable sources, 
are thrown in here to preserve them for the future histo- 
rian, as all who were familiar with them have long since 
passed away. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE ABINGDON OF MODERN TIMES. 

Having glanced, in the preceding chapter, at Abingdon 
as it was in the latter part of the past century, it may not 
be out of place to devote a short chapter to it as it is in 
this year of our Lord 1878. 

Abingdon was endowed with its name anterior to 1776, 
but it was not laid off in regular lots, streets and alleys 
till a later period, perhaps not before 1781. The streets, 
of which there are seven, intersect each other at right 
angles — three east and west, and four north and south, 
with an equal number of alleys running in the same direc- 
tions. The streets are sixty feet wide and the alleys six- 
teeu. The main street is Macadamized (as are several 
others partially), with brick pavements on either side, from 
one end of the town to the other. The population is about 
fifteen hundred. There is no place of its size in the State 
more noted for fashion, taste and morality, with the usual 
proportion of loafers and gentlemen of leisure ; and like 
all other small places where there is or has been consid- 
erable wealth, a right smart sprinkling of what some 
people would term aristocracy, but which, in reality, is 
nothing more than a decent observance of the convention- 
alities of life. Many of the private residences as well as 
public buildings are of brick, large and tasty, and a num- 
ber of them three-stories high. They are generally neat, 



104 WILBURN WATERS. 

some of them approaching elegance, and but few dilapi- 
dated, though one here and there may look as if it had 
been rocked by an earthquake, or had danced to the piping 
of a hurricane, at some period in its history. We claim 
to have one of the most capacious and convenient court- 
houses in the Commonwealth, and by some it is considered 
a model in architecture, with its massive pillars and tower- 
ing steeple, though the writer must confess that he cannot 
exactly see it in that light. 

We are a great church-going people, and have a variety 
of denominations. For instance, we have two^Methodist 
Churches — Episcopal and Protestant— a Baptist, Presby- 
terian, Protestant Episcopal and Roman Catholic, and for 
good measure we have thrown in a Swedenborgian Temple, 
and a few Lutherans, Universalists and Christian Baptists 
"laying around loose." In all these Churches are regular 
services, except the Baptist, which is rather too far from 
water to be very vigorous, and the Swedenborgian. We 
have three large and well-kept hotels, nine variety stores, 
two drug stores, two fancy stores, two or three drinking 
saloons, half a dozen confectionaries, an agricultural ware- 
house, a bakery, a billiard saloon, an iron foundry, three 
or four blacksmith and as many wheelwright shops, two 
tanneries, two or three saddle and harness establishments, 
any number of carpenters, painters, shoemakers, tailors, 
brick and stone masons, a large brick town-hall, a library 
association and reading-room, in which may be found all 
the leading literature of the day, and last, though not 
least, two of the best weekly papers within a circuit of a 
dozen miles, and a job office. The town was incorporated. 



WILBTJRN WATERS. 305 

by legislative enactment many years ago, and, city-like, 
has a mayor and common council, who maintain the peace 
and dignity of the corporation, and periodically enforce 
the hog law. 

We have, as is the case in all places where people get 
sick and die, or fall out with and wrong each other, a redun- 
dancy of doctors and lawyers— five or six of the former 
and a baker's dozen of the latter— none of them, probably, 
making fortunes very rapidly by their professions. There 
seems to be no possible chance for a diminution of lawyers 
shortly, but there is a bare probability that some one of 
the doctors may take a dose of his own medicine one of 
these days, and if so, the jig is certainly up with him. 
One of our citizens (Judge Johnston) is a United States 
Senator, and we have a score or less who would love to be 
in the House of Representatives. And right here it might 
be said we have three banks, all as stubborn as mules since 
the Legislature has limited interest to six -per cent., two or 
three insurance companies, a machine shop operated by 
steam, two tin and copper-smith establishments, a photo- 
graph gallery, two barber shops, and the biggest sort of a 
colored school. 

But the chief pride and boast of Abingdon are, or 
ought to be, its educational facilities — its schools and col- 
leges. Within the village limits there are three first-class 
female colleges. The oldest, and probably best sustained, 
is Martha Was hington, under the patronage of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church South, and directed and controlled 
by a board of trustees appointed, originally, b}' the Legis- 
lature. The building and grounds are of the most elabo- 



106 WILBURN WATERS. 

rate and magnificent order, unsurpassed for beauty and 
convenience in the South or out of it. The grounds com- 
prise some twelve acres, and are gorgeously ornamented 
with trees, and shrubs and flowers. There is more than a 
mile of continuous winding walks for the young ladies to 
promenade in, all tastefully bordered with flowering shrub- 
bery. Fruits in variety, including grapes and berries in 
lavish abundance, grow in all parts of the grounds, at all 
times in their season accessible to the inmates; and the 
young ladies seem, in their beautiful and well-ordered 
"home-school," to be as happy as the first inhabitants of 
Eden before that snake came along! The buildings are 
extensive, convenient and imposing, and capable of ac- 
commodating from one hundred and twenty-five to one 
hundred and fifty hoarders. The faculty is equal to any 
anywhere; and if the writer were young again, he might 
be bewildered at the sight of the bright eyes, sunny 
tresses, and fairy-like forms that sport and gambol amid 
the flowers of the campus on calm summer evenings. 
Some of the young men are usually crazy, but they dare 
not pass the enclosure except to see a sister or a cousin — 
and they all have cousins, of course — and even then nearly 
every tree and bush and flower seems to say "thus far shalt 
thou go and no farther." 

The Stonewall Jackson Institute, under the patronage 
of the Presbyterian Church, is yet in its infancy, compa- 
ritively, but promises to become popular as it becomes 
older and better known. The buildings, formerly the 
residence of General John B. Floyd, ex-Governor of Vir- 
ginia and Secretary of War in President Buchanan's Cab- 



WILBURN WATERS. 107 

inet, are large, handsome and well arranged, and the 
grounds, though less extensive than those of Martha Wash- 
ington, are, nevertheless, extensive enough for usefulness 
and pleasure, and are handsomely embellished. It also 
has an able faculty, is admirably managed, and is doing 
a glorious work for the present as well as the future. 

The Catholic Convent, called "Academy of Visitation, 
B. V. M.," is a large building, with some three acres of 
ornamental grounds attached, and a willow-bordered stream 
flowing through the center. It is also in its infancy, con- 
ducted by a Mother Superior and a corps of Sisters, has 
made a favorable impression upon the public, and is lib- 
erally patronized for a young institution in an almost 
exclusively Protestant community. 

In addition to the foregoing institutions for the education 
of females, Abingdon has a very excellent Male Academy, 
and a few miles away, in a retired and beautiful valley, 
Emory and Henry College, which grades as high as any 
in the South, except, perhaps, the Universities. Before the 
war this College had an annual matriculation of from two 
to three hundred, and even now, in the impoverished and 
still partially unsettled state of affairs, has within its walls 
more than one hundred students; but a chapter will be 
devoted to tills institution in the progress of this work. 

If there is any more picturesque country than that 
which surrounds Abingdon, the writer has never been so 
fortunate as to see it — that is, according to his idea of 
the grand and beautiful in nature. For a mile or two 
around the landscape is undulating, interspersed with 
bolder hills, generally wooded, standing out like islands 



108 WILBURN WATERS. 

in a storm-tossed sea. Daring spring and summer the 
whole face of the earth, except cultivated fields, seems to 
be covered with a carpet of green irregularly figured with 
wild flowers — a rural picture with a frame- work of moun- 
tains. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, ITS 
ORGANIZATION, ETC. 

Washington county is a part of the territory of which 
George Washington said in one of his patriotic appeals in 
the darkest hour of the Revolution — "If the armies of 
George the Third drive nie from the lowlands, I will plant 
my banner on the mountains of West Augusta, where I 
will draw around me the brave men who will yet achieve 
our independence." 

The Commonwealth and this county were organized the 
same year — 1776. The first court for Washington county 
was held at Black's Fort, now Abingdon, on the 28th of 
January, 1777. The following gentlemen were appointed 
justices by Patrick Henry, the first Governor, on the 21st 
of December, 1776 : Arthur Campbell, William Camp- 
bell, Evan Shelby, David Smith, William Edmondson, 
John Campbell, Joseph Martin, Alexander Buchanan, 
James Dysart, John Kinkead, John Anderson, James 
Montgomery, John Coulter, John Snody, George Black- 
burn and Thomas Martin. William Campbell and Joseph 
Martin administered the oath of justice of the peace and 
of a justice of the county court in chancery to Arthur Camp- 
bell, and he afterwards administered it to William Camp- 
bell, William Edmondson, John Campbell, Joseph Mar- 
tin, John Kinkead, John Anderson, James Montgomery } 



110 WILBURN WATERS. 

John Snody and George Blackburn. James Dysart was 
the first sheriff, appointed by Governor Henry on the 21st 
of December, 1776, and David Campbell was at the same 
time appointed clerk of the court. 

At the next term of the court William Campbell was 
appointed by the Governor lieutenant-colonel of the county, 
and Arthur Campbell lieutenant. 

On the 29th of January, 1777, Evan Shelby was ap- 
pointed colonel of militia. The first constables were 
James Wharton, James Laughlin, William Lean, Robert 
Brown. Christopher Acklin, John Fane and James Steel. 
Ephriam was the first Commonwealth's attorney. 

At the same court liquors were rated as follows : Rum, 
16s. per gallon; rye whiskey, 8s.; corn whiskey, 4s. A 
bowl of rum toddy, with loaf sugar, 2s.; with brown 
sugar, Is. 

Luke Bowyer was the first lawyer accorded as having 
taken the oath to practice, and Robert Preston was the first 
county surveyor, having his commission from the masters 
of William and Mary College. 

The land on which Abingdon is built was given to the 
county by Thomas Walker, Joseph Black and Samuel 
Briggs, in April, 1777. 

The first grand jury was impaneled at the May term in 
1777, and consisted of the following gentlemen: Robert 
Craig, Robert Buchanan, Andrew Buchanan, Samuel Buch- 
anan,' Robert Edmondson, W T illiam Kennedy, Andrew 
Colvill, Samuel Briggs, John Sharp, Alexander Breckin- 
ridge, Andrew Edmondson, George Finley, William Ed- 
mondson, David Gatewood and John Loveless. The 



WILBUBN WATEES. Ill 

only presentments they made were as follows: ."Against 
Margaret Drumman for having a bastard child, and James 
Bryant for not having the road in good repair he is sur- 
veyor of." 

At the March term in 1779 it was ordered the charges 
the current year for good rum should be 4s. per gallon; 
full-proof whiskey, 2s.; warm dinner, 15c; cold dinner, 
9c; good breakfast, 12c; oats and corn, 4c per gallon, 
and lodging, with clean sheets, 2c 

The William Campbell above spoken of was General 
William Campbell of King's mountain fame, and David 
Campbell, the first clerk, was the uncle of the late Gov- 
ernor David Campbell, and the brother of Arthur and 
John Campbell connected with the organization of the 
county. 

Washington county was the first spot of earth named 
in honor of the Father of his Country. The great high- 
way from east to west, and which passes through the centre 
of Abingdon, was known originally as "Boon's Trace," 
ah^ is the identical route blazed out by the great pioneer 
of that name in his first expedition from North Carolina 
to Kentucky, a route that had been traveled for ages be- 
fore by elk and buffalo, and which subsequently became 
one of the principal war-paths of the red man in his pre- 
datory incursions towards the border. 

In the early settlement of the country there was a block- 
house near Abingdon, where Captain Frank Findlay's 
mill now stands, called Biack's Fort, into which the 
familes of the scattered settlers gathered when alarmed by 
the approach of Indians. The very year of the organiza- 



112 WILBURN WATERS. 

tion of the county, and upon the very clay of the promul- 
gation of the Declaration of Independence, the Indians 
made a stealthy marth into the settlement, caught a small 
party of settlers on their way from the fort to the clearing 
of Parson Cummings, two miles off, killed one of them, 
and the grave in which his dust reposes, marked by a rude 
stone with the inscription, "Henry Creswell, killed July 
4, 1776," formed the nucleus of the village cemetery, 
now peopled by the dead of three generations. 

As stated in a previous chapter, the hill upon which 
Abingdon is located was first settled by a man by the 
name of Black, then a Dr. Smith, and these wer£ followed 
by the Campbells, Cummingses, Pipers, Conns, Prestons, 
Whites, Craigs, Walkers, McCullochs, Edmondsons, Low- 
rys, Findlays, Smyths and others, many of whose descend- 
ants are still in the county, and among the most prominent 
citizens. 

Those who are familiar with the history of the battle of 
King's mountain, on the line between the Carolinas — the 
battle which, as was claimed at the time, turned the tide of 
the Revolution in favor of the Colonial arms — will remem- 
ber the name of William Campbell, the senior officer in com- 
mand on that occasion. He was a citizen of this county, and 
was the grandfather of the Hon. William C. Preston, 
formerly Senator in Congress from South Carolina, as also 
of the present General John T. Preston of Richmond, of 
the first wife of General Wade Hampton, of Mrs. General 
Floyd, of the wives of Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, Gov- 
ernor McDowell and General Carrington. A large portion 
of the gallant men who followed General Campbell to 



WILBURN WATERS. 113 

that last bloody but victorious field of the Revolution, 
followed him in their hunting shirts and moccasins, and 
with their long, flint-lock rifles, were from this county — 
the "Mountains of West Augusta" — and their names are 
preserved in its archives. 

The writer will here give an incident illustrating the 
patriotism and daring of General Campbell and his men 
prior to their march to King's mountain. There is a beau- 
tiful little valley known by the name of "Black Lick," 
nestled among the mountains of Wythe county, which, 
being remote from the highways and environed by unin- 
habited forests, afforded shelter for a number of Tories, who 
made frequent forays upon the neighboring settlements, and 
then concealed themselves in this remote and quiet retreat. 
Their hiding-place becoming discovered, General Camp- 
bell's men surrounded it and captured about a dozen, and 
hung them upon two whiteoaks, which were still standing 
a few years ago, spared by the woodman's ax for the 
righteous office they had performed, and were long known 
by the name of the "Tory trees." 

Abingdon, although more than one hundred miles west 
of the Alleghahies, is one of the oldest towns in the State, 
and is entitled to some notoriety as the birth-place of seve- 
ral distinguished men. Washington county, therefore, as 
well as Abingdon, will have some claims upon future his- 
torians, if the "rebellious" nature of the present genera- 
tion has not obliterated the glorious deeds of their fathers, 
as some of the claimants of "high moral ideas" some- 
times sneei'ingly intimate. 



114 WILBURN WATEES. 

Abingdon, remote and modest as it is, has furnished the 
Old Dominion with three Governors, to wit: Messrs. 
Wyndham Robertson, David Campbell and John B. Floyd 
— all of whom acquitted themselves with fidelity and 
honor, and retired from the station with the confidence 
and esteem of the people. The first of the honored trio 
still lives among us — the others have been gathered to 
their fathers — and if great and good men should again be 
called to the councils of the nation, Wyndham Robertson 
is still in the vigor of intellect, and has the head and the 
heart to "render the State some service." (But right here 
the writer will venture to express the opinion in paren- 
thesis, that he has but little hope that our rapidly declin- 
ing Republican institutions will ever again be presided 
over by a man of expansive mind and capacious heart.) 



CHAPTER XIX. 

GENERAL CAMPBELL'S ADVENTURE WITH A DARING TORY. 

The preceding chapter gives some account of General 
William Campbell, who was a very prominent patriot in 
this part of Virginia before and during the Revolution. 
When that long struggle commenced, he was living at 
Aspinville, near the Seven-Mile Ford, now owned by his 
great grandson, Mr. Charles Preston. v At the time of the 
event to be related in this chapter, he was Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the county, and had, for the purpose of detect- 
ing Tories, given notice that all citizens were required to 
appear before him within a specified period to take the 
oath of allegiance to the young Republic. This incensed 
the few Tories then living near him to such a degree that 
they stole his horses, destroyed his property, and committed 
all sorts of depredations upon him whenever an oppor- 
tunity occurred; and one of them, whose name the writer 
has heard, but has forgotten, bolder and more desperate 
than the rest, went so far as to openly declare that he would 
take a good horse wherever he could find it, and was sup- 
posed to be the author of certain written notices that had 
been posted through the neighborhood, warning General 
Campbell that, if he didn't desist from his persecution of 
the loyal adherents of George the Third, a terrible calamity 
would befall him, either in the loss of his property or his 
life. 



.*■ 



116 WILBURN WATERS. <$ 

5- 



On a quiet and beautiful Sabbath in the spring-time of 
the year 1780, General Campbell, accompanied by his wife 
(who, by the way, was the sister of Patrick Henry) and 
several of their neighbors, attended religious services 
at a Presbyterian house of worship which stood near the 
residence of the late Captain James P. Strother, known as 
the Meek Place, in the upper end of this county. As 
they were returning to their homes, they happened to be 
conversing about the audacity of the Tory who had been 
so bold and defiant in his declarations, and suspected of 
having posted the notices above referred to; and just as 
they arrived at the top of the hill, a short distance west of 
the present residence of Colonel Hiram A. Greever, they 
observed a man on horseback on the opposite hill coming 
towards them. General Campbell was riding beside his 
wife, with an infant on before him. One of the company 
remarked that the individual meeting them was the Tory 
of whom they had been speaking, probably now on a 
horse-stealing expedition, as he was observed to be carry- 
ing a rope halter in his hand. Hearing this, General 
Campbell, without halting, handed the infant over to its 
mother, and dashed out in front. Seeing this movement, 
and recognizing the man he so much feared and hated, the 
Tory wheeled his horse and started back at quite a rapid 
gait, pursued at full speed by General Campbell and one 
of the gentlemen in company, whose name was Thompson. 
Never, it may be presumed, either before or since, has such 
a dashing and exciting race been witnessed upon that long 
level between the residences of Colonels Greeverand Beattie. 
As they reached the branch at the base of the hill a little 



v V 



WILBURN WATERS. 117 

west of Colonel Beattie's, General Campbell clashed up 
alongside of the fleeing Tory, who, seeing that he would 
be caught, turned short to the right down the branch and 
plunged into the river. As he struck the water, General 
Campbell, who had left his companions in the rear, leaped 
in beside him, grasped the Tory's holsters and threw them 
into the stream, and then dragged him from his horse into 
the water. 

At this moment Mr. Thompson rode up, when they took 
their prisoner out on the bank, and held what may be 
termed a drum-head court. The Tory, bad as he was, had 
the virtue of being a brave, candid man, at once acknow- 
ledged the truth of the charges preferred against him, and 
boldly declared his defiance and determination to take 
horses wherever he could find them. But he was mistaken 
in his man, for in less than ten minutes he was dangling 
by the halter he carried from the limb of a large sycamore 
that stood upon the bank of the river, the stump of which 
was still to be seen a few years ago, and may be there yet 
for aught the writer knows to the contrary. 

This is the stuff the men of King's mountain were made 
of, and to further illustrate their spirit and determination, 
it may not be inappropriate to relate an incident that 
occurred in the life of Squire John McCulloch, who lived 
and died on the farm now owned by the heirs of A. R. 
Mallicote, Esq., and whose father fell by his side in that 
terrible battle. Many years ago the late General Francis 
Preston, who married the only child of General Campbell 
sent his son Thomas, then a lad of some fifteen years, to 
Squire McCulloch, to ask him to write out such incidents 



118 WILBURN WATERS. 

of this battle as might have made an impression on his 
mind. He very cheerfully complied, and as he handed 
the youth his written statement, the latter, like most boys 
of his age, loved to hear stories of march and battle, and 
asked him if he didn't feel frightened when he heard the 
bullets whistling around his head, and saw the gleam of 
the British bayonets as Ferguson's Regulars dashed down 
the mountain-side toward them. The old gentleman replied : 
"Well, Tom, I don't remember exactly how I felt, but if 
I wasn't frightened, I was mightily excited. I kept my 
bullets in my mouth so as to load quick, and when the 
fight was over there was one left, and I had chawed it till 
it was as flat as a ninepence. I don't know whether it was 
fear or excitement — may be, a little of both." 



CHAPTER XX. 

SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA — ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES. 

Southwestern Virginia comprises all that portion of the 
State running clown, wedge-shaped, between Kentucky on 
the north and North Carolina and Tennessee on the south, 
and reaching from the Alleghanies in the east to Cumber- 
land Gap in the west. This area is some two hundred and 
thirty miles in length, with an average width of about one 
hundred miles, and embraces fifteen counties, beginning 
at the Alleghany, as follows: Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles, 
Carroll, Grayson, Bland, "Wythe, Tazewell, Buchanan, 
Smyth, Washington, Russell, Wise, Scott and Lee. Of 
these counties, Carroll, Grayson and Washington join 
North Carolina; AVashington, Scott and Lee join Ten- 
nessee; and Buchanan, Wise and Lee join Kentucky. 
Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles, Grayson and Wythe are in 
what is known as the Valley of New River; Smyth and 
Washington in the Valley of Holston; Russell and Scott 
in the Valley of Clinch, and Lee in Powell's Valley. The 
balance are peculiarly mountain counties, interspersed with 
irregular hills and narrow valleys. It may be more cor- 
rect to say that the several valleys named are in the coun- 
ties, and not the counties in the valleys, for the reason 
that the counties are much larger than the portions of the 
valleys that traverse them. 

The Old Dominion, taken all together— Tidewater, 



120 WILBUEN WATERS. 

Piedmont and Transmountain — is an empire within itself, 
embracing all temperatures, from the semi -torrid of Cape 
Henry to the semi-frigid of Mount Airy, and the fruits of 
all climates, from the tigs and oranges of one extreme to 
the hard and acrid productions of the other. 

Southwestern Virginia, except in climate and fruits, is 
also an empire of smaller dimensions — an empire in all 
the natural resources that any people could or ought to 
desire to make them independent, prosperous and happy. 
Take the counties of Montgomery and Pulaski, for instance, 
and they have water-power sufficient to propel all the 
machinery in half the States, and coal-fields broad enough 
to supply the population of half the Union with fuel. 
The mountains of Carroll and Grayson are pregnant with 
copper and iron, the outcroppings of which are seen all 
over their rugged sides. Wythe is rich in iron, coal and 
lead ; Smyth and Washington need only adequate transpor- 
tation to glut half the markets of the country with salt 
and gypsum ; and Wise, Russell, Scott and Lee have any 
quantity of superior coal, and the blus-grass of Tazewell, 
Bland and Buchanan would fatten the cattle on a thousand 
hills. In a word, every county in the limits named has 
coal and iron in abundance, and most of them a great 
variety of other valuable deposits. 

With rare exceptions this whole country abounds with 
limestone, and much of it of that desirable character that 
is constantly decomposing and keeping the soil perpetually 
fertile. It is also inferior to no section of the Union, of 
the same extent, for grass, and hence peculiarly adapted to 
stock-raising, wool-growing and grazing generally, and 



WILBURN WATERS. 121 

the whole of it magnificently watered and wooded. No 
country under the sun is blessed with a more genial sum- 
mer climate, purer water or grander scenery. 

The foregoing is the merest outline of Southwestern 
Virginia as a whole, and the remainder of this chapter 
will be devoted to a more minute description of Wash- 
ington county. It is comprised within an area of about 
six hundred square miles, with a population of from eigh- 
teen to twenty thousand. It is drained by three streams 
denominated rivers, running from east to west, with innu- 
merable smaller streams running at right angles with and 
into the three larger. The rivers are the three several 
forks of the Holston, which, coming together in Ten- 
nessee, some five or six miles west of the State line, form 
the Holston, which, after the confluence of a much smal- 
ler stream twenty miles below Knoxville, loses its name 
and takes that of "Tennessee," and becomes a broad and 
beautiful river before its waters mingle with those of the 
Ohio at Paducah, Kentucky. 

Washington county is belted from east to west by a suc- 
cession of ridges and valleys. Its southern border is the 
Iron, or more properly Holston mountain, and its Northern 
Clinch mountain. These are about twenty miles apart, 
and between them are six regular ranges of hills, with as 
many valleys. The middle range is called Walker's 
mountain, at the southern base of which is the broadest 
and richest valley, in which Abingdon is located, and 
along which the Virginia and Tennessee railroad winds 
its surpentine way. Walker's mountain divides the waters, 
those rising on the north side flowing into the North Fork 



122 WILBURN WATERS. 

of Holston, and those on the south side into the Middle 
and South Forks. 

It is said above that all the smaller streams flow at 
right angles with the three larger, and hense transversely 
with all the ridges and valleys. It is a remarkable 
feature that not one of them flows along the valleys or 
parallel with the ridges, but dash straight across, seeming 
to have worn gaps for themselves through interposing 
barriers. Their name is legion. It may be taken for 
granted, therefore, that this county is most bountifully 
watered, and there is scarcely a farm without a spring or 
running stream of some sort, and the writer is acquainted 
with one of six hundred acres within five miles of Abing- 
don, that has upon it sixty-five pure, bold, never-failing 
springs. 

It must not be understood that, because the country is 
scarred and belted by so many ridges, that it is not arable. 
On the contrary, a very large proportion of it is arable, 
the virgin soil of the hills being equal to that of the val- 
leys, and either of them equal, at least, to the soil of any 
other part of the Commonwealth. Many of the hills are 
of course too steep to till conveniently, but as grass springs 
spontaneously wherever the undergrowth is removed, they 
are among the most valuable grazing lands. 

Another peculiarity of the country is, that there are but 
few gullies or old-field pines, and it would be ab©ut as 
easy to find a kangaroo as a tick, though Dr. Franklin 
said, when he traveled through the State in its early settle- 
ment, that he saw little else than "hogs, dogs, fleas and 
democrats," and these are still indigenous and abundant. 



WILBURN WATERS. 123 

Nature has done a great deal for Southwestern Virginia, 
and art and enterprise but very little. Although iron ore 
abounds in every part of it, but few have made the man- 
ufacture of iron a success. Want of capital, perhaps, may 
have been one reason for the failure to make it pay. There 
can now be no reason, surely, with the redundancy of 
timber, coal, water-power, and cheap labor, why the iron 
business should not make millionaires and nabobs in Vir- 
ginia as well as in Maryland and Pennsylvania, if man- 
aged in the same way. 

But the pleasantest and quietest way to live well and 
gradually accumulate in this country, is by farming and 
grazing. Sparsely populated as it is, even small farmers 
may have the advantage of extensive ranges, and most of 
them, with this aid, can feed a greater number of cattle 
than a casual observer would suppose. This is mentioned 
for the benefit of young farmers in the older States who 
have not land of their own or the means to get it, and it 
will not require much calculation to demonstrate that it 
would be far more sensible to come here and purchase im- 
proved lands at from ten to twenty-five dollars per acre, 
than to slave on where lands no better cannot be bought 
at less than from fifty to one hundred dollars per acre. 
This proposition needs no argument, and the subject is left 
with those whom it may interest. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SOILS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY — PRODUCTS— ANCIENT 
AND MODERN MODE OF FARMING. 

The soils of Washington county are of various quali- 
ties, but all lie upon a stratum of tough yellow or red 
clay, and hence wear well, are easily improved, retain fer- 
tilizers well, are adapted to all kinds of grasses', and but 
seldom wash. The best soils are upon north hill-sides and 
sugar-tree bottoms, which is a dark mould of alluvial 
appearance, and admirably adapted to the growth of corn 
and grass. Another variety is the gray or gravelly soil, 
better adapted to wheat, rye and tobacco. It is a charac- 
teristic of most of the ridges, that while the south side is 
of a lighter color and more or less gravelly, the north 
side is almost invariably a dark mould, covered with a 
heavy growth of weeds, very loose, exceedingly rich, and 
decidedly superior to other lands for corn and root crops. 
These hill-sides are a godsend to "sang-diggers," and 
abound with Indian turnips, mayapples, sweet and bitter 
sarsaparilla, rattle-weed, spikenard and copper-head snakes. 
There is no part of the county that is not naturally 
adapted to grass, and hence it is naturally fertile. So 
much for the character of the soil in a nut shell. 

The productions of the county are all the cerials, 
grasses and roots, with respectable crops of tobacco. The 
staple is corn, though large crops of oats are raised. 
Being a stock-raising section, the most profitable crops are 



WILBURN WATERS. 125 

of course corn, rye, oats and bay. Wheat is very uncer- 
tain, not "hitting," as it is termed, every year, hut many 
think the failure may he traced to defective tillage rather 
than the rigors of winter or the ravages of insects. The 
corn crops rarely average more than twenty-five bushels 
per acre, though some farms yield forty to fifty. Take 
the county by and large, and one season with another, it is 
doubtful if the average is more than eight bushels per 
acre, yet the best farmers, in favorable seasons, make from 
twenty to thirty. Rye does somewhat better — only because 
it is hardier and better adapted to poor soil — and probably 
averages from ten to fifteen bushels per acre, and oats from 
twenty-five to forty. An ordinary crop of hay is about 
two tons, and if extra, three tons per acre, particularly the 
variety known as evergreen, which grows tall and thick 
upon ordinary land. Buckwheat rarely fails, and is of 
superior quality — and it may be said in passing that it 
makes the best whisky in the world. All root crops are 
prolific, and most of them yield generously in any of our 
soils, if properly planted and attended to. 

And now, having very briefly alluded to the character 
and productions of our soils, the writer approaches the 
difficult and delicate part of the programme with misgiv- 
ings and the fear that he may not be able to do it justice. 
He has reference to the former as well as present manner 
of farming. The last he hopes to be able to manange in 
some sort, but the first may command a power of imagi- 
nation and force of language he very much fears he does 
not possess. 

When the writer first made his home in these moun- 
tains, forty-odd years ago, many of the farmers prepared 



126 WILBURS WATERS. 

the forest during the winter for the corn crop of the fol- 
lowing spring. This they did by belting the heavy timber 
and chopping out the undergrowth. But little grubbing 
was done, and the roots were left in the ground to be torn 
up by the "bull-tongue/' which was the first implement 
honored with the privilege of preparing the virgin soil 
for a crop. Often might be seen in one of these "clear- 
ings" a sovereign with his mule and bull-tongue, toiling, 
swearing and sweating, as his rude implement, striking a 
hidden root, would toss him into the air, make him dance 
as many jigs-as a pair of frozen breeches on a clothes-line 
and throw his mule backward on his beam-ends as sud- 
denly as if he had met a thunderbolt in his way. Such 
farmers, however, managed to worry along by scratching 
the earth about as deep as a turkey hen would in search of 
food for her brood, raise a family of eight or ten white- 
headed, bare-footed, long-shirted children, and about as 
many dogs, produce a crop of stalks fifteen feet high and 
about as big as pipe-stems, with ears standing as straight 
up as those of a rabbit, and about the size of a dipped 
tallow candle. The same ground, if properly cleared and 
cultivated, would have produced from forty to fifty bushels 
per acre. 

Another class, who had gone through a like experience 
years before, had quit clearing, but were still cultivating 
corn in the same ground in which they had been raising 
it for a score of years consecutively, and when at last 
mother earth became indignant at such ruinous treament, 
and refused to respond, they would conclude to "rotate" 
with wheat or rye, which was sown broadcast among the 
standing stalks, shoveled in with the same everlasting mule 



WILBURN WATEES. 127 

and bull-tongue, and then left to take its chances. The 
consequence was, if it didn't freeze out they would have 
enough to make a few cakes and pies for Christmas, but if 
it did, they only had their " trouble for their pains," didn't 
let on that they cared a copper, and lived on in hope. 

The writer has known some men — and by the way there 
are "a few of the same sort left" — who raised large fami- 
lies in log cabins twelve to sixteen feet square, by culti- 
vating from five to a dozen acres of corn on steep hill- 
sides with nothing upon earth but a hoe. Corn was all 
they cared about cultivating, with a few beans, Shanghai 
cabbage and pumpkins, the latter kept from rolling away 
by being scotched on the lower side with a chunk or a 
stone. The rifle kept them in meat, and the ax felled the 
bee-tree and filled their gourds with honey. There never 
was a happier people than these dwellers upon the hill- 
sides, who seemed to have no concern beyond the present 
moment. They would toil at the hoe-handle all day long — 
both male and female — dance the livelong night on a 
puncheon floor by the light of a pine-knot, and it was no 
uncommon thing to hear a robust rosy-cheeked wood- 
nymph exclaim at one of their happy frolics: " Here, Sal, 
hold my baby while I run a reel with this strange feller!" 

The foregoing are imperfect outlines of farming and 
living in the hills forty-odd years ago, but great changes 
have taken place, although most of the farmers are still 
behind the march of improvement and try to cultivate too 
much Jand. Were they to limit themselves to half the 
usual quantity, they would very nearly double the yield 
with half the labor, and improve instead of exhaust their 
lands. 



128 WILBURN WATERS. 

The most successful farmers in this country are those 
who have circumscribed their operations and adopted the 
rotation system. The best farmer with whom the writer 
is acquainted, turns under the sward of the third year in 
the fall, plowing deep and subsoiling. In the spring he 
replows and harrows, checks four feet, plants as earlv in 
April as the season will allow, and works his corn (two 
stalks to the hill) four times before and once after harvest. 
As soon as it is sufficiently matured it is cut up and 
shocked, the ground again plowed and harrowed, the wheat 
sown with a drill, and, before the first freeze comes, well 
rolled. The next fall it is again put in wheat and grass, 
or allowed to rest till the following spring and then sown 
in oats and grass, and not cultivated again for three or 
four years. During the cultivation, the corn, when some 
six inches high, is primed with plaster, salt and plaster are 
sown on the wheat, and plaster upon the grass the spring 
following, more especially if it be clover. This course 
has acted like a charm on the farm alluded to, which, from 
being one of the poorest in the county a dozen years ago, 
is now one of the richest. 

The writer has thus given specimens of the worst and 
and best farming in this part of the country, and enough, 
he imagines, to give the reader a partial glimpse as to 
what sort of a country and what manner of people we 
have away out here two thousand feet above tidewater and 
live hundred miles from the sea — a country where fruits 
and flowers grow spontaneously, where the people are 
honest, intelligent and generous, where contagious epi- 
demics and malaries never come, and where all who choose 
may always have enough to eat and to wear. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SALTWORKS OF SOUTHWESTERN 
VIRGINIA — THEIR MANAGEMENT, REVENUES, ETC. 

The writer hopes he may be able to invest the subject of 
this chapter with some interest to that portion of his readers 
who may have a fondness for studying out and contempla- 
ting the wondrous prodigality of Nature in filling the earth 
with treasures, hidden and revealed, and the grand design of 
the Maker and Builder of the universe in the equitable 
and impartial distribution of His blessings among the 
dwellers upon His footstool. 

Without taking a wider or more comprehensive range, 
this can be abundantly illustrated by the valuable deposits 
in the hills and valleys of this mountain region, to which 
it was almost impossible in its earlier settlement to trans- 
port many of the prime and indispensable necessaries of 
life. For instance, the first settlers could not do without 
iron, and to have hauled it across the mountains would 
have made it almost as valuable as gold, thus placing it 
beyond the reach of the pioneer. So with regard to lead, 
and salt, and gypsum, and lime, and many other articles 
of difficult and costly transportation. Hence the pro- 
visions of Providence have placed all these within the 
means and reach of these people. These provisions are 
not all the manifestations of His wisdom and His benevo- 
9 



130 WILBURN WATERS. 

lence toward His erring and wayward children, if the 
writer may be allowed to moralize a little before settling 
down on the salt subject. We see the equal distribution 
of God's blessings in all things and everywhere. In the 
tropics, beneath the gorgeous flower that lades the passing 
zephyr with its fragrance, lurks the most venomous reptile. 
The bird of sweetest song and most brilliant plumage 
sports upon the shrub that exhales the deadliest poison. 
So here, in this mountain-girt region, where, to some ex- 
tent, the people are denied some of the higher order of 
luxuries, the earth is pregnant with all that is absolutely 
necessary to their comfort and prosperity. If they cannot 
pluck oranges and pineapples, they are not subject to the 
miasmas of the everglades — if they cannot feast upon 
melons and oysters, they have not the chills and fevers of 
the seaboard. 

But to the subject. The Saltworks are sixteen miles 
northeast of Abingdon, and so near the line dividing 
the counties of Washington and Smyth, that the two prin- 
cipal wells, one in each county, are not more than twenty 
paces apart. These Saltworks are situated in an exceed- 
ingly fertile valley, embracing some three hundred acres, 
entirely surrounded by hills — some of them very high and 
precipitous. They form a natural amphitheatre, and from 
innumerable indications, this valley, or hopper-like depres- 
sion in the hills, is supposed to have beep a lake at some 
period in the world's history. Some thirty-eight years 
ago the writer was acquainted with several aged persons 
who had known the place anterior to the discovery of the 
subterranean saline stream from which the salt is now 



WILBURN WATERS. 131 

manufactured, and when the valley was an immense "lick," 
frequented by herds of elk, buffalo, and other herbivorous 
animals. Before the time, however, of the old persons 
referred to, salt had been manufactured around what might 
have been the margin of the lake, perhaps by the aborigi- 
nes, and in the first settlement of the country persons came 
considerable distances with their sleds and kettles, and 
made a sufficiency of salt in their simple way for their own 
consumption. 

That this beautiful little valley of three hundred acres 
was once a lake, is evident, not only from the deep alluvial 
soil, but from the fossils and petrifactions found there from 
time to time below the surface. During the construction 
of the railroad to the works in 1856, many large bones 
were found in an excavation, among which were the limbs of 
an animal much larger than those of an elephant. Several 
of these limbs were found, together with a jaw-bone and 
several teeth, some of the latter weighing several pounds — 
all found some six or eight feet below the surface. 

Near the close of the last century, William King, a 
native of the Emerald isle, made the first successful experi- 
ment in digging for salt water at this lick. The larger 
portion of the lick belonged to an old English survey, and 
joined the possessions of General Russell, coming to him 
through his wife, who had been the wife and widow of 
General William Campbell. Mr. King had been a pedler, 
and in his perigri nations through the country, had observed 
and examined the salt which had been formed upon the 
surface by evaporation. Reflecting upon this, he reasoned 
himself to the conclusion that there must be a subterra- 



132 WILBUEN WATEES. 

nean saline stream, and doubting his own pecuniary ability 
to purchase the land and experiment, he tried to persuade 
General Russell (o do so. The latter, not being able to 
see as far and as hopefully into the earth as the former, 
declined, particularly as he already had thousands of acres 
of unproductive lands under onerous taxation. Mr. King 
could not shake off the conviction that there was an im- 
mense fortune for somebody under the surface of that bog, 
and he determined to risk the investment, even though he 
should lose the accumulations of years of toil. Having 
some means to spare, he purchased a small boundary (some 
fifty acres), at a nominal price, which had previously been 
offered for a pony and rifle gun, for which he paid at 
least half a dozen times, to as many individuals who fab- 
ricated claims. He preferred this to the trouble and ex- 
pense of law suits. 

After suitable preparation he commenced digging, and 
cribbing the shaft as the work progressed. He employed 
several hands, and worked on, day after day, and to the 
depth of one hundred and ninety feet, and still no water. 
With his faith still strong and unwavering, he determined 
to prosecute the work, but just at this point, the hands 
going to work one morning discovered that the bottom of 
the well had fallen out during the night, and that the brine 
had risen nearly to the top. This being communicated to 
Mr. King, who was living in Abingdon, he knew that his 
fortune was made, and forthwith prepared his furnaces for 
evaporation. From that day to this there has been no per- 
ceptible diminution of the water, yielding, it is estimated, 
ninety-five per cent, of the whitest, purest and finest salt 



' wilburn waters. 133 

manufactured anywhere in the United States. It is even 
finer than the Liverpool article, and took the first premium 
at a New York State Fair some few years ago. While it 
takes seventy gallons of the Kanawha brine, and forty of 
the Onandaigue, it requires only twenty gallons from the 
King- wells to make one bushel of salt. 

Mr. King did not live many years to enjoy his good 
fortune, but long enough to become immensely wealthy, 
and to do a vast amount of good by his benevolence, libe- 
rality and enterprise. Had he lived to be three-score and 
ten, he would have been the richest man on the American 
continent. He died in 1808 at the age of thirty-eight 
years, and then owned not only the Saltworks unincum- 
bered, but a vast amount of real estate in Abingdon and 
Washington county, with forty-odd mercantile establish- 
ments at all the more prominent points between Baltimore 
and Nashville. He married Miss Mary Trigg, who having 
no issue, he bequeathed his property to William King, his 
nephew, provided he married a daughter of his brother- 
in-law, Wiiliam Trigg, or to a son of William Trigg, pro- 
vided he married a daughter of his brother James King. 
As the stipulation could not or was not complied with, the 
property reverted to his heirs-at-law, whose name was 
] e gi ou — for what rich man ever yet died intestate without 
a multitude of heirs ! 

General Russell having also died, and his property ad- 
joining having descended to the heirs of his wife — General 
Preston and his family — they sunk a well into the same 
hidden stream or lake, and both wells are still in use, and 
though pumped by engines, the water has never been 



134 WILBURN WATERS. 

known to diminish. The combined property is now valued 
at from one to two million dollars, and is probably worth 
a'great deal more — indeed, its value can scarcely be esti- 
mated. Most of the heirs having parted with their in- 
terests, it belongs, principally, to three gentlemen, who 
were comparatively poor a few years ago, but who are 
now millionaires, and have added thousands of acres to 
the original estates. And what is better, they are liberal, 
public-spirited gentlemen, who seem to have acquired the 
philanthropy and benevolence of Mr. King with his es- 
tate. The reader may arrive at some estimate of the estate 
when he is informed that it comprises some ten to twelve 
thousand acres of land, much of it equal to the Mississippi 
bottoms, the inexhaustible supply of brine, from which is 
manufactured from two to three thousand bushels of salt 
per day, and which could be increased to almost any 
amount — it having been made during the war, when the 
works supplied the whole Confederacy, from the Potomac 
to the Mississippi, at the rate of ten thousand bushels per 
day, or between three and four million per year, without 
perceptible diminution in quantity or quality. The manu- 
facture costs less than twenty cents per bushel, and having 
no competition, sells at the works at eighty cents per bushel. 

In addition to the salt wells, the estate has upon it in- 
exhaustible deposits of plaster, for all of which, both salt 
and plaster, there is a ready market, with railroad trans- 
portation within a few feet of the wells and banks. 

With this mere outline, together with what has been in- 
timated in preceding chapters of the resources of this 
highly favored corner of the Old Dominion — and the half 



WILBURN WATERS. 135 

has not yet been told — all must conclude that God in his 
providence has lavished his bounties upon Southwestern 
Virginia with a liberal hand, and that the people thereof 
ought to be grateful, prosperous and happy. The truth 
is, they have lived too easily, and hence too negligently, 
but the war has taught them a lesson which will profit 
the more prudent, and result, it may be hoped, in a fuller 
development of their hidden wealth. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A JAUNT INTO TAZEWELL COUNTY, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF SOME 
OF ITS ROMANTIC SCENES AND NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 

In August, 1871, the writer of these pages, in company 
with Mr. R. E. Brunett, of Petersburg, started from Abing- 
don to visit Tazewell county, one of the richest as well as 
one of the most wildly beautiful aud romantic in this end 
of the State. We went by way of the Saltworks, whose 
hundreds of boiling cauldrons were turning out three 
thousand bushels of salt per day. Passing on a mile, we 
were at Mr. Palmer's cheese factory, where one hundred and 
fifty cows supply the material. In another mile we were on 
the battle-ground, where the Federal General Burbridge, 
in the third year of the war, left a regiment of negroes on 
the field by placing them in front, and where two thousand 
five hundred old men and boys whipped and chased into 
Kentucky five thousand Michiganders and "loyal" Ten- 
nesseeans. Here we forded the North Fork of Holston up 
to our saddle-skirts, and keeping up stream half a dozen 
miles, brought us to the gap in Poor Valley mountain, 
through which dashes and tumbles the madly-rushing 
Laurel, between jagged precipices at least one thousand feet 
high, and so narrow that a man can throw a stone across 
the chasm. A narrow valley separates this from Flat Top, 
crossing which, and then Clinch mountain, which are as 
near together as two mountains can be, a few miles farther 



WILBUEN WATERS. 137 

on brought us to the residence of General Rees T. Bowen, 
in Tazewell, where we were welcomed with a hospitality 
so genial and generous as to make us feel perfectly at home. 
Here we sojourned from Saturday afternoon till late in the 
day on Monday examining and admiring the wonderful 
freaks of nature and of art with which that locality so 
richly abounds. The General owns three thousand acres 
in what is called the Cove, a rich alluvial plain, famous 
for its fertility and romantic beauty. Such is the character 
of the blue-grass, even to the summits of the mountains, 
that cattle keep in fine order without other food all through 
the winter, except on rare occasions when the grass is. 
covered with snow. 

Upon this place are found those strangely painted rocks, 
which have been a wonder and a mystery to all who have 
seen them. The grandfather of General Bowen settled 
the Cove in 1766 — one hundred and ten years ago — and 
the paintings were there then, and are as brilliant to-day 
as they were when first seen by a white man. They con- 
sist of horses, elk, deer, wolves, bows and arrows, eagles, 
Indians, and various other devices. The mountain upon 
which these rocks are based is about one thousand feet 
high, and they lay in a horizontal line about half-way up, 
and are perhaps seventy-five feet broad upon their perpen- 
dicular face. When it is remembered that the rock is 
hard, with a smooth white surface, incapable of absorbing 
paint, it is a mystery how the coloring has remained un- 
dimmed under the peltings of the elements for how much 
longer than a hundred years no one can tell. This paint 
is found near the rocks, and General Bowen informed the 



4 
138 WILBUEN WATERS. 

writer that his grandmother used it for dyeing linsey, and 
it was a fadeless color. As there was a battle fought on 
a neighboring mountain between 1740 and 1750, between 
the Cherokees and Shawnees, for the possession of a buffalo 
lick, the remains of the rude fortifications being still visible, 
it is supposed the paintings were hieroglyphics, conveying 
such intelligence to the red man as we now communicate 
to each other through newspapers. It was a perilous ad- 
venture to stand upon a narrow inclined ledge, without a 
shrub or a root to hold to, with from fifty to seventy-five 
feet of sheer perpendicular descent below to a bed of jagged 
boulders and the home of innumerable rattlesnakes, but I 
didn't make it ! I crawled far enough along that narrow, 
slanting ledge, with my fingers inserted in the crevices of 
the rocks, to see most of the paintings, and then "coon'd" 
it back with equal care and caution. 

Another great curiosity upon the premises of General 
Bowen is the magnificent spring near his residence, afford- 
ing sufficient water to supply the teeming millions of the 
Empire city. It is known far and near by the name of 
"Maiden Spring," from the circumstance of his ancestor, 
who first settled the Cove, having killed a doe while 
slaking its thirst at this remarkable fountain. The spring 
affords an immense volume of pure, cold, clear water, and 
is evidently a subterranean river that finds its way into 
the outer world from the mouth of a cavern under a high 
and rugged cliff of rocks, thickly covered with trees and 
wild vines. The rush of the water is so great and rapid, 
that its roar can be heard at a considerable distance. It 
affords ample water-power for any amount or character of 
machinery. 



WILBTJRN WATERS. 139 

Within three-fourths of a mile of this spring, and upon 
the same premises, boils up the second section of the South 
Fork of Clinch river. This stream has its source in a 
number of springs several miles eastward, and after wind- 
ing and tumbling among the hills for some distance, 
entirely disappears, running several miles underground, 
till it boils up again in the cove, as above stated, which 
forms, as the writer has termed it, the second section of a 
river. It is a broad, rapid stream from the spot where it 
reappears, and General Bowen informed us that such is the 
force with which it comes to the surface, that it is difficult 
for a man to force his foot into the apperture. 

We visited many other places of interest on the Gene- 
ral's premises, such as subterranean springs, deep, dark 
caverns, and very reluctantly left his hospitable roof and 
pleasant family late in the afternoon, and after a warm 
ride of a dozen miles along a rich but narrow valley, 
bordered by high mountains on either side not more than 
half a mile apart, we arrived at Jeffersonville, the county 
town of Tazewell, with a population of about six hundred? 
and situated on a gentle eminence, with rich and romantic 
surroundings. Immediately opposite the town, and but 
little more than a mile from it, and covered with blue- 
grass to its very summit, rises a rock-crowned peak in 
Rich mountain, easily accessible on horse-back, fifteen 
hundred and seventy feet above the level of the street. 

We remained in Jeffersonville till the afternoon of the 
next day, enjoying the splendid scenery, and for the pur- 
pose of affording my companion an opportunity of exam- 
ining the records and ascertaining the whereabouts and 



140 WILBURN WATERS. 

boundaries of a tract of land among the mountains upon 
which he held a claim. His search was unsuccessful, for 
instead of finding the farm of somebody else on top of his? 
he found his on top of everybody's else — upon the very 
"topmost towering height" of "Cucumber Ridge," in 
McDowell county, West Virginia, in an immense pile of 
rocks, with here and there a stunted laurel, where the 
roots could struggle for enough into the fissures to hold it 
upright. Such, at least, was the information he obtained. 
We then started for Burk's Garden, in the eastern end of 
the county. Half way there we passed, almost imper- 
ceptibly, over the ridge that divides the waters of the 
Tennessee and the Kanawha, those on the west side flowing 
into Clinch, and those on the east side into New River — 
running in directly opposite directions for hundreds of 
miles, and then uniting in the Ohio. At the western base 
of the ridge we drank out of the head-spring of Clinch 
river, a cold, bold fountain, in which my companion had 
a fight with a very large water-moccasin, without material 
injury to either combatant. A mile or two farther on we 
came to the base of Rich mountain, which is crossed by a 
winding turnpike some five miles over. The mountain at 
this crossing is heavily timbered, many of the trees being 
cucumber, a species of domestic magnolia, which were pe- 
culiarly rich at that season, with their clusters of crimson 
fruit and dark green foliage. 

About the middle of the afternoon we descended the 
opposite side into a sharp, narrow valley, with the gap or 
gate-way opening into Burk's Garden in plain view, 
three-fourths of a mile from and five hundred feet above 



WILBURN WATERS. 141 

us. This gap looked to the writer like a curf that might 
have been chopped by all the men in the world put into 
one man, and with an ax with all the axes in the world 
put into one ax. The writer regards Burk's Garden as 
the grandest spot of earth his eyes have ever beheld. It 
is ten miles long and five wide, with a turnpike running 
straight across it through the centre. Knowing no one 
we rode on to one of the two stores and the most public 
place in it, and although there were several gentlemen 
present, they all seemed to be so busy buying and selling 
that they had no time to answer our seemingly unimpor- 
tant questions in more than monosyllables, particularly 
after having learned that we were not in the cattle trade. 
After resting awhile we remounted, and concluded to go 
farther even if it should be our luck to fare worse. The 
sun was still some distance above the horizon, and as the 
tall trees made long shadows under the standing rays, 
tinging- the tops of the opposite mountain with its softened 
light, the scene was indescribably grand, and we thought 
it no wonder that the old pioneer Burk, when his vision 
first fell upon that valley hung like an eagle's nest among 
the mountains, exclaimed, "surely I have found my way 
into the garden of Eden!" 

We continued to ride on leisurely, seemingly without 
purpose or destination, but rapt in admiration of all that 
met the view — tall timber, green fields, fruitful orchards, 
sparkling rivulets, fat cattle, tasty homesteads — till we 
reached the farther or northern boundary, where we began 
to cast about for shelter for the night, more especially as 
ominous looking clouds were looming up in the distance 



142 WILBURN WATERS. 

accompanied by flows of wind and scattered rain drops. 
Seeing a neat little farm-house hard by, surrounded by 
rich fruits and green pastures, we rode up and were met 
at the gate by a pleasant-looking young gentleman, who, 
on being told who we were, and what our mission, threw 
open his doors and his heart, and gave us one of those 
generous welcomes which we have never seen more warm 
and unostentatious than in Tazewell county. We were at 
the residence of Mr. H. H. McGinnis, who had but re- 
cently commenced house-keeping, and although we felt 
that we were improperly intruding upon new beginners, 
the kind and hospitable attentions of his pleasant lady 
and himself, made us feel at home and forget that we were 
strangers. 

The peregrinations of the past few days having wearied 
us somewhat, we did not rise next morning as early as 
usual, but in ample time to see Old Sol lift himself over 
the eastern barrier, and strangely and gorgeously light up 
with golden tints the foliage, flowers and magnificent 
meadows of that beautiful valley. A comfortable night's 
rest and an excellent breakfast prepared us for another day 
of wandering and observation, and bidding adieu to our 
kind entertainers, we started out to see more of the spot 
upon which nature seems to have concentrated the sum 
total of her bounties. Coming to a large gate that had 
whiteoak trees for posts, and seeing a large herd of cattle 
up to their eyes in blue-grass, in an inclosure of hundreds 
of acres, we turned in, and finding a path leading east- 
ward, we followed it several miles, passing through a num- 
ber of gates between fields and plantations. We at length 



WILBURX WATERS. 143 

found ourselves upon the splendid estate that once belonged 
to the Floyd family, and where, a few years ago, a white- 
oak spread its broad shade, the trunk of which measured 
fully nine feet in diameter, and near which we drank from 
a spring one hundred and twenty feet in circumference,, the 
bottom of which has never been sounded. 

After riding about for several hours among the green 
pastures and noble old forest trees, we made our way back 
to the road, and were shown the epot, near the centre of 
the garden, where Burk lighted his first camp-fire and 
spent his first night in his new-found Eden, marked by a 
splendid spring and the stump of an old sugar-tree. Pas- 
sing on a mile or two more brought us to the residence of 
Mr. Litz, in the western end, whose son accompanied the 
writer to the top of the mountain at the extreme western 
limit, while his companion remained to rest his jaded 
horse, where a magnificent view of the whole area is ob- 
tained. The Garden, including the arable mountain-sides, 
contains some fifty thousand acres, about one-ninth of 
which belongs to two individuals — Messrs. Lawson and 
Meek. We learned from the census-taker, whom we met 
on his mission, that it embraces one hundred and fifty 
families and one thousand seven hundred inhabitants. Al- 
though it is apparently level, the streams all flow with con- 
siderable rapidity, and converge toward the gap, where 
they form a large creek, that goes leaping and bellowing 
down the steep rocky mountain-side with wild and fearful 
velocity, falling five hundred feet in the first half-mile of 
its course. 

After enjoying a comfortable family dinner with Mr. 



144 WILBURN WATERS. 

Litz, we turned our horses' heads westward, and night 
found us at the residence of Mr. James S. Witten, four 
miles west of Jefferson vi lie, where we met with a cordial 
welcome, a pleasant and happy family, and a houseful of 
pretty young ladies, most of whom had gathered in from 
the neighborhood. Mr. Witten, like General Bowen, is 
one of those whole-souled gentlemen who seem to feel 
honored by a call, whose hopitalities are as free and as 
boundless as the breezes of their native hills, and whose 
houses, omnibus-like, however full, always have room for 
one more. After chatting till a late hour with the old 
folks, while the hours with Mr. Brunett flew past as if on 
angels' wing in the parlor, we retired to a comfortable 
room and were soon oblivious to all earth's joys and sor- 
rows. 

The next morning was bright and balmy, but the clouds 
hanging lazily on the sides of the mountains gave indica- 
tion of coming rain. When we spoke of starting home- 
ward, Mr. Witten informed us that we couldn't do that 
thing that day, but must remain at least one day longer, 
if not a week. We were too polite to be rude, and too 
sumptuously entertained to desire a change, and of course 
cheerfully consented to postpone our departure. For my 
part I was gratified that we did, for I visited a mountain 
that day — Morris' Knob — that put me nearer heaven than 
I had ever been before, and my young companion was 
doubtless as near the same happy place as myself, as he 
remained behind enjoying the society of the ladies. In 
company with Mr. John Witten, the brother of our host, 
we ascended the highest peak in Rich mountain, said to be 



WILBURN WATERS. 145 

the highest point in the State, and affording a grand and 
most extensive view. It is not as high from base to sum- 
mit as White Top, but being in a section more elevated, 
it is higher above the level of the sea. The southern face 
of the summit is crowned with an immense square rock, 
itself said to be three hundred feet perpendicular. This 
rock seemingly overhangs a beautiful valley a mile or two 
away, and affords an unobstructed view, limited only by 
the scope of vision. On every hand, mountains piled on 
mountains meet the view. But for the fact that masses 
of cloud rested upon the mountaius in the distance, I was 
informed that Pilot and Black mountains in North Caro- 
lina, as well as many peaks in the Blue Ridge, the Alle- 
ghanies and the Cumberland, would be plain to the naked 
eye. As it was, the scene was indescribably beautiful, and I 
shall never forget my admiration of the cabins on the green 
hillsides, seeming to hang among the foliage like nests of 
the Baltimore oriole. After spending an hour or more 
among the sharp and chilling winds, where millions of 
snow-birds build their habitations and rear their young, 
and the grey eagle makes his home, we came down through 
blue-grass knee-deep, and in less time than it takes me to tell 
it were broiling under a sun that had lifted the mercury 
up to ninety-four in the shade. A circle of a few miles 
brought us back to the residence of Mr. Witten, where 
the balance of the evening was spent by myself in listen- 
ing to interesting narrations of Indian traditions, while 
my younger companion was still in clover in another apart- 
ment. 

10 



146 WILBURN WATERS. 

Taken altogether, the writer regards this as one of the 
most instructive and gratifying pleasure excursions he has 
ever taken, and doubts not that he lived fully nine years 
of solid enjoyment ^in those nine summer days and one 
hundred and fifty miles of mountain travel. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

AN INDIAN INCURSION AT ABINGDON, AND INCIDENTS IN 
PIONEER LIFE. 

The writer of these sketches has given from time to time, 
in newspaper articles, narratives of the sufferings and 
vicissitudes of the early settlers of Southwestern Virginia, 
but as he contemplates the subject, incident after incident 
rises up before him, of greater or lesser magnitude, all 
combining to illustrate the propriety of putting them in 
such form as may secure their perpetuation in the history 
yet to be written of this interesting portion of the Old 
Dominion, more particularly when it is remembered that 
" nations only begin to look after the history of their 
founders, and search into their origin, when they have out- 
lived the memory thereof." 

A large majority of the dwellers upon our picturesque 
slopes and blooming valleys, have but little conception of 
the dangers and privations encountered and endured by 
the generation, — the dim shadows of which are vanishing 
like the tints in a dissolving scene, — who cleared the forest 
and opened out the rich and beautiful farms^that are now 
spread out upon our hills and mountain sides and grassy 
plains. Fpr instance, but few of the present inhabitants 
of Abingdon, now so tranquil and unstartled by threatened 
or anticipated calamity, are aware that the ground now 
occupied by our two flourishing female colleges was once 



148 WILBURN WATERS. 

a dense chinquapin thicket, which, in the summer of 1776, 
concealed a band of painted warriors who made a savage 
attack on Black's Fort, which stood near the spot now 
occupied by Captain Findlay's mill, and that the face of 
the hill between Stonewall Jackson Institute and the rail- 
road was the scene of a bloody battle. Nor are they aware 
that the Rev. Charles Cummings, who was the pastor of 
the congregation who worshipped in the church that stood 
in the old grave-yard, attended his appointments on the 
Sabbath with his shot-pouch and powder-horn slung around 
him and his rifle in his hand, while the brave men who 
assembled to enjoy the comforts and blessings of their holy 
religion, resembled more a company of modern militia, 
armed and equipped for action, than the pious men they 
were, who were not allowed to worship the Great Jehovah 
rt under their own vine and fig-tree " without serious ap- 
prehensions of a lurking foe. 

The writer is indebted to Colonel Abram Mangle, one 
of the oldest and most reliable citizens of the county, for 
an outline of the following incidents : 

On one occasion in the year above referred to — 1776 — 
two men and three women were pulling flax near the fort, 
with Frederick Mangle stationed as a sentinel to give the 
alarm should Indians make their appearance. The enemy, 
who had concealed themselves in the chinquapin bushes 
above referred to, stealthily approached, wounded and 
scalped Mr. Mangle, but the persons in the flax-patch, by 
dodging from tree to tree, finally reached the fort in safety. 
The men in the fort sallying out, reinforced by a number 
in the vicinity who had heard the firing, attacked the 



WILBURN WATERS. 149 

savages and drove them off with considerable loss. Mr. 
Mangle survived his injuries but a short time, and his re- 
latives claim that his, and not Henry Oeswell's, was the 
first grave in the old Sinking Spring cemetery. 

But to proceed with the more prominent incidents the 
writer proposes to record. In 1778, a predatory party of 
Indians came in from the Rockcastle hills in Kentucky, 
and made their appearance at the cabin of Isaac Newland, 
on the North Fork of Holston, the place subsequently 
owned by Michael Fleenor, and still in possession of his 
descendants, some eight miles north of Abingdon. Mr. 
Newland and his son were at work in a clearing near by, 
with no one at the cabin but his wife and her infant. The 
Indians captured the mother and infant, burnt the cabin, 
and hurried away with their captives directly through the 
mountains toward Russel. The alarm being given, Jacob 
Mangle (father of Colonel Abram Mangle), being the 
nearest neighbor, gathered a company in as short a time 
as possible and took the trail, which had been plainly 
marked by Mrs. Newland, who had the presence of mind 
to break twigs by the way and leave other sign. After 
reaching the valley in which Lebanon is now situated, and 
fearing that the powder in their flint-locks had become 
dampened in passing through the thick undergrowth on 
the mountain, they discharged their guns for the purpose 
of reloading in order to make sure work should they over- 
take the savages, but it unfortunately so happened that 
the Indians had halted, and hearing the report of fire-arms 
took the alarm, murdered their victims and made their 
escape. A few minutes after, the pursuing party came to 



150 WILBUEN WATERS. 

where the mother and child were lying, the latter not quite 
dead. They brought them back to the settlement, Jacob 
Mangle carrying the infant, which died in his arms on the 
way. 

The alarm having reached the little settlement at Abing- 
don, it produced great consternation and serious appre- 
hensions as to what might befall the little community at 
Castle's Woods, as the Indians would probably return in 
that direction, it being in a line with their towns beyond 
the Cumberland. A young man living at Abingdon by 
the name of Douglass, a fearless and determined Indian 
fighter, proposed to cross the mountain to Castle's Woods, 
for the purpose of warning the settlers of the impending 
danger, and a young friend by the name of Benham vol- 
unteered to accompany him on the perilous journey, against 
the expostulations of their relatives and friends. Every- 
body in this country acquainted with the old road through 
Little Moccasin Gap, will remember the large, square, flat, 
table-like rock, some five or six feet high, which stood on 
the lower side of the old trace along the creek not far from 
opposite the little mill now on the new road in the gap, 
the noisy machinery of which sends strange echoes along 
the surrounding peaks in these days of piping peace and 
corn-dodgers. Douglass and Benham had reached that 
rock, and, as was the custom of most wayfarers, as long 
as that old road was the highway through the gap, had 
probably halted to eat a snack. At this moment the re- 
port of a rifle was heard, when Douglass fell mortally 
wounded. 

He at once told Benham that the shot was fatal, and 
urged him to dodge into the laurel bordering the stream, 



WILBURN WATERS. 151 

make his escape to Castle's Woods and warn the settlers. 
Douglass saw the smoke of the rifle rise from a log be- 
tween the stream and where the road now passes, and 
knowing that it was the habit of the Indian to lie still 
under such circumstances till the smoke cleared away, 
when he would cautiously raise his head to see the effect 
of his fire. He drew a bead upon the spot as he lay 
propped upon his elbow, and Benham afterward stated that 
he had not gone fifty yards when he heard the report of 
Douglass' rifle. Benham hurried on through the gap, 
reached Castle's Woods in safety and gave the alarm. A 
company returning a day or two after found the body of 
Douglass lying where Benham left him, with his scalp 
gone, and on examining the place where the smoke of the 
Indian rifle had been seen, blood and brains were found 
upon the log, showing that Douglass, at the instant he 
entered upon that journey from which no traveler returns, 
took an Indian with him on the solemn march. A grave 
was excavated anions; the rocks on the road-side where he 
fell, in w r hich his body was deposited, and still sleeps, amid 
the wildest and most romantic scenery of all our mountain 
gorges. It was the custom for each passer-by who knew 
the spot to drop a pebble upon the rude mound, to per- 
petuate the memory of the resting-place of the brave 
pioneer who sacrificed his life for the safety of others per- 
haps unknown to him, but the vandalism of modern change, 
instead of rearing a monument to his memory on the spot, 
wantonly changed the location of the road to avoid a slight 
elevation, and thus obliterated forever the little hillock 
that marked the receptacle of the ashes of the hero and 
martyr. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

A KACE FOR LIFE— INDIAN DEPREDATIONS ON THE HOLSTON. 

Visitors to this beautiful country, as well as many who 
inhabit it, are not aware, or rather do not reflect, that many 
of these green hills and picturesque valleys were once the 
scenes of frequent Indian cruelty and outrage. The writer 
proposes, -as briefly as he can, to give an imperfect sketch 
of one of the last predatory incursions of the red men into 
the valley of Holston, as he has heard it related by more 
than one aged citizen. It occurred on the 7th day of 
April, 1794, on the North Fork of Holston, twenty-eight 
miles west of Abingdon. 

This region of country — "the settlements of Holston," 
as it was called — was originally neutral ground among the 
tribes, uninhabited, and reserved as a common hunting 
range. The centre of this reservation was "Wolf Hills," 
where the spires of the town of Abingdon now glisten in 
the sunlight of au "advanced civilization." The fertility 
of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the purity and 
abundance of water, and the value of the blue-grass, pea- 
vine and canebrake ranges, on bottom and upland alike, at- 
tracted immigration at an early period, and consequently 
at the time of the later Indian depredations, a number of 
settlers had erected their cabins and chopped out their 
clearings where now are to be seen broad fields and elegant 
mansions. 



WILBURN WATERS. 153 

It is the purpose of the writer to speak more particularly 
of the incursion of 1794, and to refer, incidentally, to 
others of a later date and of less magnitude. That of '78 
was led by Benge, a half-breed Shawnee, who was remark- 
able for his strength, activity, endurance and great speed 
as a runner. He was a man of more than savage intelli- 
gence also, as well as of great bravery and strategy, and 
had more than once approached the settlements so stealthily 
and by a route so secret, that he fell upon the scattered 
settlers without an intimation of his appoach, and retired 
to his wigwams beyond the Cumberland without leaving a 
trace of the route he had traveled, though rangers were 
constantly on the lookout for his trail. One of these ran- 
gers of the Holston settlement was a man by the name of 
Cotterell, and the writer must make a digression to record 
an incident in his history. He was famous for his size, 
activity and handsome person. Benge and himself were 
rivals in manhood and wood-craft, each jealous of the 
other's prowess and courage, and both anxious for an oc- 
casion to meet in single combat. Not many months be- 
f}re Benge's last incursion, they met on top of Powell's 
mountain, in what is now Lee county, each with a band 
of followers. The Indians were in ambush, having ob- 
served the approach of the whites, who were not aware of 
their proximity, and Benge instructed his companions not 
to kill Cotterell, so that he himself might run him down 
and capture him. At the crack of the Indian rifles the 
two or three of Cotterell's companions fell, seeing which, 
and at once comprehending the folly of a combat with a 
dozen savages, he sprang away down the mountain-side 



154 WILBURN WATERS. 

like an antelope, with Benge in close pursuit. Two miles 
away in the valley on Walling's creek was the cabin of a 
pioneer, in reaching which Cotterell knew was his only 
chance of escape. Having two hundred dollars in specie in 
a belt around him, he found he was carrying too much 
weight for a closely contested race, and that Benge was 
gaining on him. Making a desperate effort, however, he 
increased his speed a little, and as he leaped the fence that 
surrounded the cabin, Benge's tomahawk was buried in 
the top rail before Cotterell reached the ground. Benge, 
seeing that he had missed his aim, and not knowing how 
many men and rifles might be in the cabin, fled back to 
his companions sadly disappointed. 

A few years after this Cotterell died on the North Fork 
in this county, and during the "wake," while his body lay 
in the cabin, an old comrade, who had been in many a hard 
pinch with him, thus gave utterance to his thoughts and 
feelings as he paced the puncheon floor in great sorrow : 
"Poor Cotterell, he is gone ! He was a noble fellow after 
Ingins and varmints, and I hope he has gone to where 
there is as much game and as desperate good range as he had 
on Holston ! " 

But to return to the subject. Not a great while before 
Benge's last predatory incursion, 1794, a man by the name 
of Hobbs, almost, if not quite, the equal of Cotterell in 
prowess, bravery, activity and daring, and "some among 
Ingins," as the phrase had it, determined to discover the 
secret path by which Benge crossed Cumberland moun- 
tain and entered and retired from the settlements. He at 
length ascertained it to be one of two cattle paths crossing 



WILBURN WATERS. 155 

the mountain midway between two gaps some few miles 
apart, through which the highways into Kentucky lay in 
those days. He at once organized a squad of mountaineers 
to meet him at a designated spot the moment it was known 
that Indians were in the settlements. 

Time wore on, and all was pleasant and prosperous on 
the Holston. One bright morning in May, 1794, after the 
sun had risen and the men had gone to the clearings and 
the women were busy at their wheels and looms, all joyous 
and jovial amid the fragrance of wild flowers and the 
music of song-birds, and not dreaming of coming danger, 
Benge and his painted warriors stealthily approached and 
surrounded the cabins of Feter Livingston. The writer 
will here give the narrative of the capture and massacre 
in the words of Mrs. Osborne, who was the daughter of 
Peter Livingston, was one of the captives, frequently heard 
the narrative from the lips of her parents, and is still living 
within sight of the spot where the outrage occurred : 

When the party of Indians were first discovered by Mrs. 
Elizabeth Livingston, they were within a short distance 
of the house. Her attention was attracted by the barking 
of a dog, and seeing them, and knowing their evil design, 
she fastened the door to prevent their entrance, and awaited 
the attack. While they were trying to break open the 
door, she took down a rifle that was laying in the rack 
and fired among them, with what effect she never knew. 
The Indians then went to the kitchen, where they found 
three children, one white and two colored. They toma- 
hawked these and left them for dead. The white child 
and one of the colored recovered. They then went to the 



156 WILBURN WATERS. 

cabin of old Mrs. Sally Livingston, close by, and toma- 
hawked her. She lived four days. After taking what pro- 
visions and household articles they wanted, they fired the 
house which Mrs. Elizabeth Livingston occupied, when 
she was forced to come out and surrender. Before doing: 
so, however, she gave her infant to her little daughter, 
who escaped with it to the house of Mr. Russell, the near- 
est neighbor. This infant became the wife of Solomon 
Osborne, and furnishes, as before said, this narrative. The 
captives with which the Indians started to their towns 
were Mrs. Elizabeth Livingston, wife of Peter, Mrs. Susan 
Livingston, wife of Henry, and who had been married 
only three weeks, two colored men and one colored woman. 
The alarm was soon given, and a party of men lead by 
a man by the name of Head started in pursuit, while 
Hobbs aud his squad, having heard that the Indians had 
gone towards Holston, made their way to the designated 
place of meeting at the base of Cumberland mountain. 
Hobbs and his men having reached their destination 
several hours in advance of the Indians and the party fol- 
lowing up the trail, he divided them into two parties, in 
order to guard the two paths, one or the other of which 
he was satisfied the savages would travel, each company 
to be stationed in line and in ambush within convenient 
range of the path. Hobbs himself chose to be with those 
who guarded the path he thought the Indians would be 
most likely to take, and after disposing of them in line, 
concealed by the undergrowth, he instructed them not to 
fire should the Indians come that way till he had given 
the signal, each man selecting his victim, so as not to waste 



WILBURN WATERS. 157 

the second bullet on the same object. They were not kept 
long in suspense, after being disposed, before the red-skins 
were seen silently and cautiously wending their way with 
their captives up a long spur in single file, Benge in the 
lead, as was his invariable custom. Hobbs knowing his 
habit, had himself taken the farthest position, so that when 
the Indians should be opposite his line, Benge would be 
opposite him. Before Benge had advanced far enough to 
come within range of Hobb's rifle, one of the men, having 
become impatient, fired without waiting for the precon- 
certed signal. As no time was now to be lost, each white 
man selected his Indian and blazed away. At the crack 
of the rifles, and seeing that most of his followers had 
fallen or disappeared, Benge sprang off like a startled buck, 
leaving captives and all behind. Opposite Hobb's posi- 
tion was an opening in the timber, where the trunk of a 
large tree had fallen across the path, and he knew that his 
only chance to bring Benge to a halt, as he afterwards ex- 
pressed it, was to wing him as he passed around the root 
of the tree into the narrow opening. He had but a moment 
to reflect, and as Benge at full speed darkened the opening, 
Hobbs drew a bead and fired, when Benge sprang into the 
air with a yell, and fell without a struggle or a groan. 

That was the last of Benge, the half-breed Shawnee 
warrior, and the last Indian predatory incursion to the 
Holston settlements. Mr. Hobbs lived many years, be- 
came a pious and useful minister of the Methodist Church; 
and the Legislature, some years after, as a testimonial of 
its appreciation of his gallantry, voted him a handsome 
and costly silver-mounted rifle. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

A THRILLING NARRATIVE OF KATY SAGE, THE LOST CHILD 
OF GRAYSON. 

The circumstances of the following narrative are most 
remarkable, certainly stranger than fiction, and involve 
more to touch the heart and enlist the kindlier emotions of 
our nature than anything the writer has been able to pick 
up in his long residence among the mountains. 

On Elk creek, in Grayson county, Virginia, lived, in 
1792, a young and happy family, consisting of James Sage, 
his wife and three or four small children. The morning of 
the 11th of April in that year was bright and balmy, the 
early wild flowers were bursting into bloom, the song-birds 
were trilling their melody in the budding forest, the be- 
spangled trout were sporting in the crystal waters of the 
mountain stream, and all was peaceful and joyous around 
the cabin of the pioneer. The husband and father was 
preparing his clearing for the summer crop, and the wife 
and mother preparing for the day's washing. She had gone 
to the little stream near by to build a fire, leaving her little 
daughter Katy, then only five years old, chasing butter- 
flies among the shrubs of the garden. After starting the 
fire, the mother returned to the cabin for the clothes she 
intended to wash, when she missed the child that had been 
seen sporting in the garden a short time before. After a 
diligent but fruitless search for some little distance around 



WILBURN WATERS. 159 

the inclosure, she became alarmed and called her husband 
from the field, and they both sought the little one till night 
fell upon the scene, and still she could not be found. The 
weary hours of the night chased each other slowly on, and 
still the agonized parents heard no cheering answer to their 
continued calls. On the morrow the neighbors gathered 
in, the country at that time being very sparsely populated, 
but some fifty or sixty of them came together, and day after 
day and week after week they searched every cove, thicket, 
stream, cave and mountain-side, and still no tidings of the 
little wanderer. 

At length all except the father gave up the search in 
despair, who continued it for months, passing over nearly 
every square yard of ground for miles around, with the 
melancholy hope that at least the remains or some indica- 
tions of the fate of the lost one might be found, which 
would be more satifactory than the agonizing suspense that 
hung about the hearts of the parents. In his wanderings 
he heard of the fame of an old woman known by the 
name of Granny Moses, who lived beyond the mountain 
in North Carolina, and who was believed by the settlers to 
possess the faculty of revealing all mysteries and fore- 
telling future events. He sought her out and consulted 
her. After consulting her occult sciences, she informed 
him that the child was still living, but that he would 
uever see or hear of her, though his wife, who would sur- 
vive him, would hear from her child in her old age. 

Time wore on, thirty-one years had passed, and in 1823 
the father died, and still no tidings of the lost one. Time 
was still on the wing, and amid its changes and revolu- 



160 WILBURN WATERS. 

tions and startling events, the mysterious disappearance of 
Katy Sage was unrevealed and almost forgotten. In the 
meantime the family became scattered — one of the sons 
settling in Lee county, Virginia; another in Missouri, and 
a third in Kansas. Years swept on, and in 1854 Charles 
Sage, who lived in Kansas, having business with the Gov- 
ernment, visited the Indian Agency on the border of that 
Territory. On entering the office, he attracted the atten- 
tion of the Agent, who asked him if he had a sister or 
other female relation among the Indians, stating that there 
was a white woman among the Shawnees, who sometimes 
visited the Agency, to whom he bore a most remarkable 
resemblance. He informed the Agent that he was not 
aware of having such a relative, but that, more than sixty 
years before, a sister of his had been stolen or lost, who 
had never been heard from. The Agent, believing the 
woman among the Shawnees and the lost child to be one 
and the same, propose to send for her and have the mys- 
tery solved. 

She was sent for and came to the Agency with an in- 
terpreter, not being able to speak or understand a word of 
English. As soon as Charles Sage saw her, he believed 
her to be his long lost sister, from the striking family 
resemblance, got her consent to go home with him, and 
wrote at once to his brother Samuel in Missouri to come 
to Kansas immediately and see if he could recognize her 
features, as he was old enough to remember their sister 
when she disappeared. He made the journey, and as soon 
as he saw her he burst into tears, so certain was he that 
she was his sister Katy. But all suspense and mystery 



WILBURN WATERS. 161 

were dissipated when she informed them through an inter- 
preter that she had been taken from her home when a small 
child by a white man, lived several years among the Che- 
rokees, then among the Creeks, and finally among the 
Shawnees, and that in all her wanderings, from tribe to 
tribe, and from country to country, she had retained the 
name of Katy. She had been three times married to 
chiefs of the Shawnee tribe, had lost an only child, and 
was now a widow. 

To place her identity beyond all cavil or doubt, the 
brothers wrote to their mother, still living on the same 
spot in Grayson county, Virginia, and then ninety-five 
years old, to know if she recollected any mark upon the 
person of Katy by which she might be recognized. In 
due time they received an answer that she was marked 
with a ginger-colored spot on one of her shoulders, and on 
being examined the spot was found. This entirely and 
unmistakably established her identity. 

The brothers now began to arrange to take her to their 
mother, but before their arrangements had been completed, 
Katy took the pneumonia and died, and although the 
parents and lost child never met again on earth, they all 
"crossed over the river, and are resting under the shade 
of the trees." 

While the writer does not subscribe to human divina- 
tions, or human power to solve the mysterious providences 
in the womb of the future, he must regard the predictions 
of Granny Moses as the most remarkable since the days 
of the Witch of Endor. 
11 



162 WILBURN WATERS. 

Should any reader be skeptical as to the truth of any of 
the remarkable circumstances above stated, they will be 
attested by Mrs. Elizabeth Delp, sister of the lost one, 
who still lives at the old homestead in Grayson, or Mr. 
Thompson Sage, a brother, at Stickleyville, Lee county, 
Virginia. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE ABDUCTOR OP KATY SAGE — THE HORSE-THIEF'S REVENGE. 

The preceding chapter is a truthful narrative of the 
abduction of Katy Sage, of Grayson county, in 1792, and 
this chapter will explain by whom the cruel outrage was 
perpetrated, and the motive prompting the bad man who 
cast this broad shadow upon an innocent family. 

James Sage, the father of Katy, was a native of Mary- 
land, and a soldier of the Revolution. He belonged to 
the brigade of General Enoch Poor, and was in the battles 
of Brandy wine, Monmouth and Germantown, endured the 
sufferings and privations of that terrible winter at Valley 
Forge, and was an eye-witness of the last act in the great 
drama — the surrender Lord of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 
He married at Fredericktown, Maryland, in 1780, and after 
the close of the war the next year removed with his young 
wife to the " back woods," and settled on Cripple creek, 
Wythe county, Virginia. He remained here some ten years, 
and then removed to Elk creek, in what is now Grayson 
county, where he resided when his child was stolen, the 
old homestead being still in possession of his descendants. 

Owning several fine horses, and more than he needed 
for his then small farming operations, as did also two of 
his neighbors by the names of Delp and Cornut — names 
still familiar in that county — they concluded to turn them 
into the range, which, at that early day, was very fine, and 



164 WILBURN WATERS. 

sufficient to keep them, even in winter, in good condition, 
without additional food. This was early in the spring of 
1792, and the horses had been out but a few weeks when 
Mr. Cornut, on going out to salt them, discovered that three 
of the most valuable were missing. The three neighbors, 
with as little delay as possible, packed up provisions for 
the journey, shouldered their rifles and started in pursuit. 
They were not long in finding the trail, which led them 
along the bank and toward the source of that crooked and 
turbulent stream now known by the name of Holston, to 
the base of White Top mountain. Here the trail divided, 
one of the horses keeping along the side of the mountain, 
the others slightly diverging from the regular trace. 

This was doubtless done for the purpose of baffling pur- 
suit, and made it apparent that there were at least two 
thieves. Mr. Sage followed the track of the single horse, 
and his companions followed those of the two. When the 
former reached the summit of that part of White Top 
known at this day as Elk Garden, the long swag connecting 
White Top and Balsam, even yet the most luxuriant and 
nutritious pasturage in all that vast range, he came upon 
all three of the horses hobbled and quietly grazing, but 
the thieves, who were doubtless enjoying themselves in the 
cabin of one of the few squatters of that wild and almost 
inaccessible region, eluded their search. He soon called 
up his companions, and catching and mounting the horses, 
which had their halters on them, they made their way back 
to the settlement. 

Suspicion had been directed to a man by the name of 
Talbert as the principal thief, who had been dodging about 



WILBURN WATERS. 165 

from settlement to settlement without apparent business or 
visible means of support, and who had been seen on Elk 
creek a day or two before the disappearance of Katy Sage. 
He was never seen there afterwards, and it was the opinion 
of the community that he had stolen the child, and that 
the motive was revenge for the loss of the horses he had 
stolen from the father. 

Katy informed her brothers, through an interpreter, that 
she had been stolen by a white man, who picked her up in 
his arms, muffled her head and face with a handkerchief, 
and threatened to kill her if she gave any alarm. He car- 
ried her with considerable speed until he thought himself 
safe from pursuit, made his way to the Cherokee Nation, 
disposed of her there, disappeared, and she never saw or 
heard of him afterwards. 

Katy's subsequent history being given in the preceding 
chapter, these facts are given to illustrate how slight a pro- 
vocation may sometimes induce a bad man to commit a 
most inhuman crime. The child could be of no benefit 
to him, farther than the trifle the Indians might give for 
her with the hope of securing a ransom, but the distress 
of the father in the loss of the little one, far more bitter 
than if it had died in his arms, was the gratification sought 
by her abductor, appropriately termed the Horse-thief's 
Revenge. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE PIONEERS OF CASTLE'S WOODS, AND TROUBLES WITH THE 
INDIANS. 

The following chapter is made, up from notes furnished 
the writer by William J. Dickenson, Esq., grandson of one 
of the pioneers, a prominent citizen of Russell, an intelli- 
gent and honorable gentleman, and the statements, there- 
fore, may be regarded as accurate. 

There was a settlement at Black's Fort (now Abingdon), 
and another on the North Fork of Holston, when the first 
known adventurers visited what has ever since been known 
as Castle's Woods, in Russell county. This was a very 
fertile tract of country on Clinch river, with splendid range 
and fine hunting and fishing. It is still one of the most 
desirable tracts of country in Southwestern Virginia, and 
embraces some of the best farms and most successful 
farmers in all this highly favored region. Persons now 
passing that way, and seeing the broad fields and meadows 
stretched out as far as the vision can reach, all covered 
with grain and grass and waving corn, with orchards, 
flowers and fruits and elegant homesteads, wonder why 
such a beautiful and extensive tract should be called 
"woods." Just about one hundred years ago — not a long 
period in the history of a country — the first trees in that 
grand old forest were felled, and for the first time the 
smoke from a white man's cabin mingled with the mists 
of the river and struggled along the face of the hills. 



WILBURN WATERS. 167 

The first four pioneers were a man by the name of Cas- 
tle, whose name the section still bears ; Henry Dickenson, 
Charles Bickley and Simon Ocsher. A very short time 
after, a number of others, hearing of the game and the 
range, found their way into this beautiful valley, among 
whom were James Bush, William Fraley, Archelous Dick- 
enson, Humphrey Dickenson, James Osborn, William 
Richie, Jerry Harold, William Robertson, Richard Long, 
William Long, William Bowlin, William Russell (for 
whom the county was subsequently named), Samuel Porter, 
Henry Neece, Henry Hamblin and William Wharton. 
Humphrey Dickenson was killed by the Indians in the 
ford of the river, about which time Richard and William 
Long killed an Indian spy near the same place. The 
families of several of these pioneers were murdered by the 
Indians. 

The writer will now have to go back a little to tell about 
the fort and the transactions that occurred there. The first 
cabin was erected by Castle, about one mile west of what 
is known as Rock Farm, at a spring near where William 
R. Mead now resides. The fort subsequently built was 
called Bush's Fort, and stood on an eminence not far from 
the spot now occupied by what is called Mud Store. This 
wos in 1770 or '71. Not long after this — perhaps during 
one of these years — transpired the occurrences the writer is 
about to relate. A party of about seventeen Indians 
stealthily approached the fort, at a time when all the men 
were out, and when the only occupants were women and 
children. Before approaching it, however, though only a 
short distance from it, they met with a young woman by 



168 WILBUEN WATERS. 

the name of Ann Neece, who had gone out for some pur- 
pose, whom they tomahawked and scalped, and left for 
dead. They then approached the fort, and were discovered 
by Simon Ocsher, Henry Dickenson and Charles Bickley, 
who happened to be working at a mill near by. The In- 
dians observing them about the same time, and the white 
men being unarmed, their situation was a fearful one. It 
was now to be a struggle which party should get to the 
fort first. Charles Bickley remarked "Boys, follow me,' 
and they all started for the fort at full speed, the Indians 
halting to fire upon them. They got safely into the fort 
through a shower of balls without receiving a scratch, 
thus literally running the gauntlet. There were but two 
guns in the fort, and with these Ocsher and Dickenson 
each killed an Indian. The balance of the savages, knowing 
nothing of the strength of the fort, and their guns being 
empty, hastily picked up their fallen companions and fled 
into the woods. Meeting with a colored man hunting 
sheep, who belonged to Henry Dickenson, they captured 
him, and he was never heard of afterwards. 

Some hours after their departure, and while there was 
still apprehensions of their return by the few persons in 
the fort, Ann Neece was seen slowly approaching, as 
bloody as if she had been dipped in a pool of gore, with 
streams jetting from her head, apparently as numerous as 
had been the hairs of her head before she was scalped, 
each jet about the size of a hair. She recovered, married 
and raised a family, and some of her descendants are still 
living in Russell county. Henry Dickenson was a soldier 
in the Indian wars as well as the Revolution, and was at 



"VVILBURN WATERS. 169 

the great battles of Point Pleasant and King's Mountain. 
Charles Bickley, being a younger man, lived with him till 
he married. He lived many years, and, like Henry Dick- 
enson, raised a large family and left many descendants. 
The writer has no information of the future of Castle and 
Ocsher. 

Castle's Woods, as before said, was first settled about 
one hundred years ago. The first settlement could hardly 
be considered permanent, as the pioneers were sometimes 
in the fort and at other times on their claims. They 
would raise small patches of corn in the summer and go 
into fort in winter, or back to the Holston settlements. 
Some of them cultivated their crops simply with the hoe, 
while others used a rude implement made of a forked 
limb, one prong sharpened to scratch the loose soil, the 
other to fasten the horse to, and the main stem answered 
for a handle. Their horses, when not in use, were belled 
and turned out to feed at large on the nutritious cane and 
wild grass. The pioneer's rifle and dog were mostly his 
stock in trade, and furnished him an abundant supply of 
game of all kinds, from the buffalo down to the smaller 
varieties, and all the streams furnished fish in any quan- 
tity and of the most delicious flavor. There was no com- 
plaint then of scarcity of meat, for the pioneer and his 
rifle were inseparable companions — they walked together, 
rode together, rested together and slept together. When 
he was hungry, he had but to draw his trusty friend to his 
face and pick the fatest game of the forest. They were 
all marksmen, and dressed in buckskin breeches with skins 
of other animals for other garments, and 'coonskin caps 



170 WILBURN WATERS. 

to cover the head with the tail hanging down behind, 
where it properly belonged. The women wore skins and 
linsey instead of crinoline, and short gowns and petticoats 
instead of balm orals and hoop-skirts. They had but little, 
needed but little, and wanted but little. They were as 
free as birds, happy as kittens, and roamed the forest at 
large, and for this liberty and these enjoyments they dared 
the dangers of the tomahawk and scalping-knife, and 
were ever ready to fight to the death to maintain them. 
They lived like brothers, helped each other to rear their 
cabins, clear their patches, roll their logs, gather their har- 
vests, and divided the last hoecake when necessary. If 
one had occasion to rejoice they all rejoiced; if one had 
occasion to mourn they all mourned. It cost but little 
labor to raise a crop, the generous soil producing fifty 
bushels of corn to the acre even with the deficient culture 
they gave it. At first they poundered their corn for 
bread, then used hand-mills, and would have been as 
happy as children at a modern picnic, but for the troubles 
sometimes occasioned by the predatory incursions of the 
red man. 

This, in some sort, is a brief history of the first settle- 
ment of Castle's Woods, and these items are thrown 
together more for the purpose of preserving them for the 
benefit of coming generations, than a mere fondness for 
writing. They are believed to be accurate, and if so, they 
may furnish a portion of the warp or woof of a future 
history of that beautiful but remote valley among the 
mountains, in this far off corner of the Old Dominion. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

TROUBLES OF THE EARLY SETTLERS. 

Every little scrap of history connected with the early 
settlement of this part of the State will some day become 
important, and hence the writer has attempted to seek out 
and gather up such scraps, in order to preserve them for 
the use of the future historian. 

During the spring of 1777 — several years before the 
capture and murder of the Livingston family on the North 
Fork of Holston, an account of which is given in a pre- 
ceding chapter — a party of Indians, under the lead of the 
same half-breed Benge and a savage white man by the 
name of Hargus, crossed the range of hills north of Clinch 
at High Knob, and made their way to Bluegrass Fort on 
Stony creek, which was not far from what is now known 
as Osborn's Ford, in Scott county. The white man Har- 
gus had been living in the neighborhood, but had absconded 
to the Indians to evade punishment for crime, and became 
an inhuman persecutor of his race. 

The Indians, having cautiously and stealthily approached 
the river down Stony creek, and fearing they might be 
discovered, crossed some distance below and came up in 
the rear of a high cliff* south of and opposite the fort, con- 
cealing their main body in the bushes at the base. In 
order to command a view of the fort, they sent one of 
their number to the summit of the cliff to spy out the 



172 WILBURN WATERS. 

condition of the fort and to act as a decoy. He ascended 
in the night, and climbed a tall cedar with thick foliage 
at the top, on the very verge of the precipice, and just at 
break of day he began to gobble like a wild turkey. This 
imitation was so well executed it would have been success- 
ful but for the warnings of an old Indian fighter present 
by the name of Matthew Gray. Hearing what they sup- 
posed to be a turkey, and desiring him for breakfast, some 
of the younger members of the company proposed to go 
up the cliff and shoot him, but Gray told them if they 
wanted to keep their scalps on their heads they had better 
let that turkey alone, and if they would follow his direc- 
tions he would give them an Indian for breakfast. 

Having promised to obey his instructions, he took seve- 
ral of them with him to a branch which he knew to be in 
full view of the Indians, and told them to wash and dab- 
ble in the stream to divert the attention of the enemy for 
half an hour, while he went to look for the turkey, which 
still continued to gobble at short intervals. Gray, having 
borrowed an extra rifle from David Cox, crouched below 
the bank of the stream, and in this manner followed its 
course to where it emptied into the river half a mile below, 
at a place known as Shallow Shoals. Here he took the 
timber, eluding the vigilance of the Indians by getting in 
their rear. He then crept cautiously up the ridge, guided 
by the gobbling of the Indian in the top of the cedar on 
the cliff. Getting within about seventy-five yards of the 
tree, and waiting until his turkeyship had finished an 
extra big gobble, he drew a bead upon him and put a ball 
in his head. With a yell and spring the Indian went 



WILBURN WATERS. 173 

crashing through the tree-tops and over the precipice, a 
mangled mass of flesh and bones. Then commenced a 
race for life. Gray had played a desperate game, and 
nothing but his fleetness and his knowledge of savage craft 
could save him. He knew that the Indians in ambush 
would go to their companion on hearing the report of the 
rifle, and that they were not more than two hundred yards 
away. He did his best running and dodging, but they 
were so close upon him that he would have been captured 
or killed, had not the men of the fort rushed out to his 
rescue. 

The Indians, finding that they had been discovered, and 
that they were not strong enough to attack or besiege the 
fort, started in the direction of Castle's Woods. The 
persons at Bluegrass knowing that the settlement at Castle's 
Woods was not aware that the Indians were in the vicinity, 
determined to warn them, but the difficulty was how this 
was to be done, and who would be bold enough to under- 
take it, as the Indians were between the two forts. When 
a volunteer for the perilous expedition was called for, 
Matthew Gray, who but an hour before had made such a 
narrow escape, boldly offered his services, and, getting the 
fastest horse and two rifles, started out through the almost 
unbroken forest. Moving cautiously along the trail, he 
came near Ivy spring, about two miles from the fort, when 
he saw signs which satisfied him that the Indians had 
halted at the spring. There was no way to flank them, 
and he must make a perilous dash or fail in his mission of 
mercy. Being an old Indian fighter, he knew that they 
seldom put out pickets. The trail making a short curve 
near the spring, he at once formed the plan of riding 



174 WILBURN WATERS. 

quietly up to the curve, and then, with a shot and a yell^ 
to dash through them. This he did, and before they had 
sufficiently recovered from their surprise to give him a 
parting volley, he was out of reach. He arrived at the 
settlement in safety, and thus in all probability saved the 
lives of all the settlers. The Indians, however, captured 
two women on the way — Polly Alley at Osborn's Ford, as 
they went up the river, and Jane Whitaker near Castle's 
Woods. 

Finding the fort at Castle's Woods fully prepared for 
their reception, the band had to abandon their murderous 
purpose and pass on with their captives, without permitting 
themselves to be seen. Reaching Guess' Station, they re- 
mained part of the night, but finding it well prepared for 
defence, they continued their journey to the "Breaks," 
where the Russell and Pound forks of Big Sandy pass 
through the Cumberland mountain. Here, tradition says, 
they tarried half a day, and loaded themselves with silver 
ore. This tradition has led some to suppose that this was 
the place where Sol Mullins, the noted maker of spurious 
coin, obtained his metal, as he long inhabited that region. 
After this they traveled every day, resting at night, 
until they reached the Ohio at the mouth of Sandy. Cross- 
ing the river on a raft of logs with their prisoners, who 
suffered more than can be described or conceived on the 
long march, they reached their destination at Sandusky. 
The two young women were closely confined for some time 
after their arrival, though they were eventually stripped 
and painted and allowed the liberty of the village, closely 
watched for a month or more, but seeing they made no 
attempt to escape, the Indians abated their vigilance. 



WILBURN WATERS. 175 

Observing this the girls determined to make an effort at 
escape. Having been permitted to wander about at pleas- 
ure from time to time and punctually returning at night, 
the Indians were thrown off their guard. Having wan- 
dered one day farther from the village than usual, and 
being in a dense forest, they started out on the long journey 
toward their home. After traveling all night, they found 
themselves only about eight miles from the village, and 
finding a hollow log, they crept into it, with the determi- 
nation of remaining concealed during the day. They had 
been in it but a few minutes before Hargus and two or 
three Indians came along in pursuit and sat down upon it, 
and the girls heard them form their plans for the next 
day's search. Returning late in the afternoon, having lost 
the trail, the Indians sat down upon the same log to rest, 
and again the occupants beneath them heard their plans for 
pursuit. These were, that a party should pass down each of 
two rivers which had their sources near their village and 
emptying into the Ohio. They became very much enraged 
at having been baffled by two inexperienced girls, and 
threatened their victims with all sorts of tortures should 
they be recaptured. Hargus, more furious than the In- 
dians themselves, striking his tomahawk into the log to 
emphasize his threats, and finding it return a hollow sound 
declared the girls might be in it, as they had been traced 
thus far, where the trail was lost, and sent one of the 
savages to the end of the log to see. The savage went 
and looked, but seeing that a spider had stretched its web 
across the aperture, he made no further examination. This 
web, which probably had not been there an hour, saved 
them from recapture, and it may be from a cruel death. 



J 76 WILBURN WATERS. 

After the Indians left, the girls, having, heard their 
plans, left the log and resumed their weary journey, taking 
a leading ridge which ran at right angles with the Ohio 
and led them to it not far from opposite the mouth of 
Sandy. They could hear the yells of the Indians in 
pursuit each day and night until they reached the river, 
when, from a high promontory, they had the satisfaction 
of seeing their pursuers give up the chase and turn back 
towards their village. They had nothing to eat for three 
long days and nights but a partially devoured squirrel 
from which they had frightened a hawk, and on the night 
of the third day after the Indians had relinquished the 
pursuit, they ventured to the river, where they were fortu- 
nate enough the next day to see a flat-boat with white 
men in it descending the stream, who, on being hailed, 
took them aboard, set them across at the mouth of Sandy, 
and furnished them with a sufficiency of bread and dried 
venison to last them two weeks, and a blanket each, in 
which time they expected to make their way back to one 
of the settlements on Clinch. They took their course up 
Sandy on the same trail they had gone down some months 
before, but in one of the rapid and dangerous crossings of 
that stream, they lost all their provisions as well as blan- 
kets. This, though a great calamity, did not discourage 
them, but pushing on, with the blessings of kindred, 
friends and home in view, they found their way through 
Pound Gap and reached Guess' Station about the middle 
of September, having been on the journey about a month, 
after encountering hardships and dangers under which 
many of the sterner sex of the present day would give 
way. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND FLATS. 

The following outline of the battle of Long Island 
Flats — the last general battle of the Cherokees for the 
continued possession of their favorite hunting ground on 
Holston — was taken from the lips of some of the imme- 
diate descendants of the pioneers who participated in the 
sanguinary struggle. It differs but slightly from the 
account given in Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee, which 
the writer had not seen when this outline was written 
some years ago, and it may, therefore, be regarded as very 
nearly if not quite correct. 

This battle occurred on the 20th of July, 1776, but a 
little over two weeks after the adoption of the Declaration 
of Independence and the last Indian depredations at 
Abingdon. It was the last grand Cherokee rally to 
overrun the whole Holston country and to exterminate 
the scattered inhabitants. Runners had been sent to all 
the Indian towns in what are now Eastern Georgia, Mid- 
dle and East Tennessee and Western North Carolina — 
then the territory of the great and warlike Cherokee Na- 
tion — when, according to one account seven hundred, and 
according to another fifteen hundred painted warriors were 
gathered at a common rendezvous, and arrangements 
entered into for the bloody expedition. The principal 
12 



178 WILBURN WATERS. 

Chief of the tribe was the celebrated Dragging-Canoe, a 
savage of more than common bravery and skill, who was 
thought to be the equal of Tecumseh, and whose hatred 
of the "pale-face" amounted to a mania. They met at 
Long Island, in the South Fork of Holston, a short dis- 
tance above the present town of Kingsport, Tennessee, and 
six or seven miles from the Virginia line. Here Dragging- 
Canoe divided his forces into three divisions, one to go up 
the bank of the North Fork towards its source, another 
to keep up the South Fork, and the third to proceed up 
the intermediate valley to Black's Forf, now Abingdon, 
then the principal settlement in the Cherokee hunting- 
grounds. The Chief himself was with the latter division, 
which was the largest, anticipating the most formidable 
resistance. 

There was a fort on each of the routes selected — one on 
Watauga, a tributary of the South Fork; another in the 
Fleenor settlement on the North Fork, and the third at 
the base of Eden's Ridge, at the junction of what is now 
known as the Blountville and Island roads. These forts 
were to be first attacked and destroyed, as it was Indian 
policy never to leave an enemy in rear if it could be pre- 
vented. This accomplished, a general and indiscriminate 
massacre of the entire Hclston settlement was supposed to 
be an easy task, with a force very nearly equal to the 
whole population. 

As above stated, the three divisions started from Long 
Island on the 20th day of July, 1776. A few days before 
this, information of the contemplated invasion having, by 
some fortunate means, reached the settlement at Eden's 



WILBURN WATERS. 179 

Fort, runners were dispatched to apprise the settlements 
along the rivers and at Black's Fort. At that time there 
were three men in this county by the names of James 
Thompson, John Campbell and James Shelby, each of 
whom had a company of minute men, the whole compris- 
ing only about one hundred and seventy-five, who at once 
determined to meet and attack the three divisions of In- 
dians in detail. Neither of the officers ranked higher than 
captain, and as Mr. Thompson was the senior of the three, 
he was honored with the chief command. Capt. Thomp- 
son lived in the vicinity of Seven Mile Ford, Captain 
Campbell at Black's Fort, and Captain Shelby at or near 
where the flourishing town of Bristol is now located. 

As it was known that Indians on the war-path moved 
with great rapidity, and as it was desirable to encounter 
them as soon after their division as possible, and before 
they should have time to commit many depredations, the 
men of the three companies were gathered, armed and 
equipped in a few hours, and on the night of the 19th of 
July they reached Eden's Fort, only seven miles from 
Long Island, whence the Indians were to start out next 
morning. Early on the morning of the 20th, Captain 
Thompson and his men crossed the ridge, in order to meet 
the middle and principal division led by the Chief, in the 
broad and beautiful bottom now belonging to Mr. James 
W. Preston. Arriving before the Indians, the men were 
disposed behind trees and logs, and among the tall cane, 
and awaited their coming. It was a trying situation, that 
calm summer morning, for that little handful of brave 
mountaineers standing among the tall trees of that quiet 



180 WILBURN WATERS. 

and blooming valley, awaiting the coming of not less, per- 
haps, than three times their number of painted savages 
upon the war-path, breathing fire and slaughter, and led 
by a Chief whose skill, courage and cruelty had made his 
name a terror throughout the border. Yet they were calm 
and determined, and for the sake of the jewels left in 
their cabins along the bright waters of the Holston and 
in the green valleys among the hills, each pledged himself 
to the other to turn back the tawny tide to their distant 
wigwams or leave their own bones to bleach upon the 
plain. They knew the strategy of Dragging-Canoe, and 
believed that he would lead his warriors along this bottom 
in order to conceal his approach to Eden's Fort, and hence 
they awaited his coming. They were not kept long in sus- 
pense, for ere the birds had ceased their matin songs, or the 
sun had lifted the mist above the tree-tops, the long, silent 
line of dusky warriors was discerned winding like a huge 
serpent among the timber, seemingly anticipating the car- 
nival of blood they were to enjoy within the hour. 

As the long file moved cautiously and noiselessly along, 
without apparent apprehension of immediate danger, the 
whites permitted the whole body to emerge from the cane 
and undergrowth into the open woods before a shot was 
fired or a man of the company had been discovered. At 
the word of command, every white man's rifle was dis- 
charged, many a red-skin fell in his tracks or limped off 
into the canebrake, and then commenced a running fight 
from tree to tree, with rifle, tomahawk and knife. The 
first volley, however, had killed and crippled so many of 
the Indians, a panic soon seized the balance, and in a run- 



WILBURN WATERS. 181 

ning fight of some six miles across the flats to Long Island, 
some forty Indians were slain, with probably more than 
twice that number wounded, the Chief being among the 
latter, and not a single white man killed or seriously in- 
jured. 

In passing over the ground a year or two ago, from the 
spot where the battle commenced a portion of the way to 
where it terminated, the writer's mind instinctively wan- 
dered back to those stirring times when the ancestors of 
those who now so quietly and happily till the same fields 
went to their work with their rifles in their hands, and 
were frequently shot down in the furrow by a lurking foe. 
He was shown the narrow ravine up which the retreating 
Indians passed from the bottoms to the flats, and the iden- 
tical trail, still marked by a tree or some other indication, 
along which they fled to the island in the river, which 
they had left that calm summer morning with a burning 
thirst for blood. Reaching this they were safe; for, 
although the whites pursued them to the very margin of 
the stream, and strewed the entire route with the slain, 
they could not reach the island without fearful loss, and 
fell back to Eden's Fort. Dragging-Canoe, finding that 
he had lost a large number of his warriors, and that intelli- 
gence of his plans and purposes had reached all the settle- 
ments, sent runners after the other divisions, who returned 
by circuitous routes, made a hasty retreat to their distant 
towns, and never afterwards appeared in force in the Hol- 
ston settlements. 

Lone: Island is now a magnificent farm of several hun- 



182 WILBURN WATERS. 

dred acres, and the whole country, from Mr. Preston's 
bottom to the river, is laid off in broad fields, dotted with 
comfortable homesteads, and teems with an intelligent and 
thrifty population, most of them descendants of those who 
reared their rude cabins in the unbroken forest and endured 
all the hardships and dangers incident to pioneer life. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

REMARKABLE INCIDENTS IN PIONEER LIFE. 

This chapter will comprise some interesting incidents 
culled from a mass of traditions gathered by the writer in 
his long intercourse with the descendants of the pioneers 
of the mountains. He gives them as he received them, 
without actually knowing them to be true in all their 
details, but believing them to be so in the main, although 
some of them may largely partake of the marvellous — but 
let it not be forgotten that "truth is often stranger than 
fiction." 

A preceding chapter speaks of Burk, the discoverer of 
that magnificent valley high up among the mountains in 
Tazewell county, still bearing his name, and it is now pro- 
posed to give another incident in his eventful life. 

After discovering and for several years before removing 
his family to the Garden, Mr. Burk was in the habit, 
during the summer, of visiting it for the purpose of hunt- 
ing and grazing his stock. Having remained there with 
two companions one season later than usual, for the pur- 
pose of tanning some hides he had on hand, about the 
period that the Shawnees, under the lead of the great Chief 
Cornstalk, were making incursions as far eastward as the 
Shenandoah Valley, the weather became quite cold before 
they were able to start for the settlement on New river. 

Having crossed the mountain forming the northern 



184 WILBURN WATERS. 

boundary of the Garden, with several pack-horses loaded' 
with rolls of leather, night overtook them at what is now 
known as Sharon, a beautiful watering-place in Bland 
county. Instead of camping out, as was the custom in 
those days, they took shelter for the night in a rude struc- 
ture of logs that had been thrown up for the protection 
of hunters and graziers in cold and stormy weather. 
Tying their horses to the trees, and throwing their rolls of 
leather on the floor, they started up a fire in the hut, par- 
took of their simple meal, and lay down to rest. Hearing 
a strange noise during the night, and supposing something 
to be the matter with one of their horses, one of their men, 
who happened to be awake at the moment, arose and looked 
out, but seeing that the horses were all quiet, he returned 
to the fire and soon fell asleep again. 

Rising at an early hour, and going out to feed their 
horses before starting for a long day's travel through an 
unbroken wilderness, they were astonished to find one of 
the horses dead, having been stabbed with a large knife 
during the night. From this and other indications they 
had unmistakable evidence that Indians had been prowl- 
ing around while they slept, and w T ere puzzled to conjecture 
why the marauders had not made an attack upon them, as 
there were but three of them, and all sleeping soundly 
from the fatigues of the preceding day. They hurriedly 
gathered up the balance of the horses, packed on the rolls 
of leather and started along the trace, in momentary 
expectation of being surprised and perhaps murdered by 
an ambushed foe. They had gone but a mile or two, 
when they came to a camp-fire in the woods, and were 



WILBtTRN WATERS. 185 

'startled at the horrid sight of the bodies of three while 
men, who had been murdered as they slept, and scalped, 
apparently but a few hours before. 

The death of the horse had pretty well satisfied them 
that Indians had been lurking about, but now they had 
no doubt but that there was a party of Cornstalk's scouts 
on the war-path. They disposed of the murdered men 
as best they could under the circumstances, hurried on to 
the nearest settlement aud gave the alarm. The presence 
of an Indian, like that of a mad dog in New England, 
instantly roused the population, and it was but a very 
short time till scouting parties were out and on the trail. 
One of the parties came upon the Indians, five or six in 
number, the next day, on Walker's Creek, and killed all 
but one, who escaped their fire, but who was subsequently 
captured. He revealed to his captors that his party had 
followed Burk's trail, came to his camp about midnight, 
peeped through the logs of the hut to see how many 
were there, and mistaking the rolls of leather lying about 
the floor for so many men, they concluded the party was 
too strong to attack, unless they were asleep, and killed 
the horse to see if the noise would arouse them. The cir- 
cumstance of one of Burk's companions looking out when 
he heard the noise led the Indians to believe that the 
whole party were awake, and hence they passed on to the 
other party whose trail they had seen, and murdered and 
plundered them. The rolls of leather saved Burk and his 
companions that night, but he and his family were mur- 
dered by the Indians a few years later. 

About this period, there was a family living on Walker's 



186 WILBURN WATERS. 

Creek, in what is now Bland county, by the name of 
White. During one of the predatory incursions of the 
Indians, they captured and carried off a little boy belong- 
ing to the family. A number of years after, during one 
of the expeditions of General Clarke to quell the Indians 
in Kentucky, he had encamped on the bank of the Ohio, 
awaiting the return of scouts who had been sent out to 
reconnoitre. One of his men, by the name of White, from 
Walker's Creek, and brother of the boy that had been 
stolen, was out a short distance from camp in search of 
game, when he saw a solitary Indian sitting on a log 
mending his moccasins. His first impulse was to shoot 
him, as all the Indians in that region were hostile, but 
fearing the report of his gun might start up a score of 
red-skins in the vicinity, and as the back of the savage 
on the log was toward him, he concluded to approach 
stealthily and capture him alive. He did so, and took 
him into camp. From his hair and other indications, they 
supposed him to be a white man, and after compelling him 
to scrub the paint off, their suspicions were confirmed, and 
they subsequently learned through an interpreter — as the 
captive had forgotten his native language — that his name 
was White, had been stolen by the Indians from his home 
in Virginia when a child, and eventually proved to be 
the brother of the man who captured him, and came so 
near taking his life. 

The brothers lived many years, settled in Kentucky, 
and he who had been so many years among the Indians 
was a delegate in the Legislature in the early organization 
•of the State. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

A SINGULAR INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF HON. WILLIAM C. 
PRESTON. 

To give variety as well as interest to this hastily gotten 
np little volume, the writer has interspersed a chapter here 
and there illustrating the troubles and sufferings of the 
pioneers of this part of Virginia, a few hunting adven- 
tures of others than the great trapper of White Top, and 
he now proposes to give a chapter narrating a curious inci- 
dent in the early life of the Hon. William C. Preston. 

All who have arrived at the age of maturity in South- 
western Virginia, know that the above named distinguished 
orator and Senator of South Carolina, and who died in 
that State a few years ago, was a native of the town of 
Abingdon, Virginia, and that this was his home from in- 
fancy to manhood. Having, however, left Virginia at the 
age of twenty-four, he was better known by his brilliant 
career and world-wide reputation than by a personal in- 
tercourse with the people of his native hills. He was 
born in 1798, and about the year 1815 entered Columbia 
College, South Carolina. He was the grand-nephew of 
Patrick Henry, and the grandson of General William 
Campbell, the hero of King's mountain, and inherited the 
eloquence of one and the name of the other, and the talents 
and patriotism of both. During his collegiate course, he 
spent his vacations at home, and determined, on one occa- 



188 WILBURN WATERS. 

sion, instead of taking the tedious and circuitous stage 
route back to his school, to mount his horse and ride 
through the mountains, as he loved the beautiful in nature, 
and could thus see and enjoy the grand scenery along the 
Laurel, Watauga, Yadkin and Catawba, and have the 
opportunity of visiting King's mountain, the field upon 
which his ancestor had led, in 1781, many of the brave 
yeomen of his native county, the dust of a number of 
whom was left to mingle with the soil of that remote and 
silent battle-field. 

Leaving Abingdon, Mr. Preston proceeded up the Lau- 
rel, one of the most rapid and dangerous streams in all 
this mountain country, and much more dangerous to ford 
at that day than now, and which he was compelled to cross 
twenty-six times in less than half as many miles. The 
gorge through which it winds and tumbles is still among 
the wildest and most romantic in all this region, precipices 
on either side of the narrow pass rising to the height of 
thousands of feet in places, and even at this day the covert 
of wolves and bears, and any number of venomous rep- 
tiles. 

Leaving this and passing along the picturesque table- 
land where the pleasant little village of Taylorsville sits 
like a queen on her throne, his path led him across the 
Iron mountain into the valley of Watauga at the base of 
the Blue Ridge, where, spread out in rare and wonderful 
beauty, the "Vale of the Cross," the location selected 
many years ago by the eccentric Bishop Ives, of North 
Carolina, for his impracticable school of celibacy. Passing 
this, the road, measuring twenty-three miles in its wind- 



WILBURN WATERS. 189 

ings, begins to ascend the Blue Ridge, crossing which it 
passes on the summit two springs, not more than three 
hundred yards apart, one the source of New river, running 
north hundreds of miles to the Ohio, and the other the 
source of the Yadkin, running south as many miles to the 
Atlantic. Here, too, within a few minutes' walk of these 
springs, is Blowing Rock, one of the grandest natural 
curiosities with which these mountains abound. This 
rock is upon the summit of the Ridge, overlooking the 
valley of John's river, which winds two thousand feet 
below. The rock derives its name from the circumstance 
that a man standing upon it may cast his hat out over the 
chasm beneath, which, after hanging in midair a moment, 
will float back high above him, and may, as did that of 
the writer's on one occasion, lodge in the top of a tree. 
This is caused by the shelving nature of the rock on the 
under side, which, catching all the winds, sends them out 
in a strong current, although there may not be a zephyr 
stirring anywhere else in the vicinity. 

Leaving this point, the rough bridle-path, as it was 
when Mr. Preston traveled it, wound along the bank of 
the tortuous Yadkin — upon which Daniel Boon grew to 
manhood and married his wife — to the southern base of 
the Blue Ridge, where the country opens out wide and 
fertile, and which was one of the favorite hunting ranges 
of the Catawba Indians. Passing through these broad 
and now highly cultivated bottoms, then all covered with 
timber and cane, Mr. Preston followed the trace that now 
passes through the handsome and thriving villages of 
Lenoir and Newton, to the old town of Lincolnton, a 



190 WILBURN WATERS. 

place of note and enterprise before the Revolution, but 
more notorious in later years as the locality of " Ramsour's 
Mill Pond/' into which the patriotic yeomen of the vicinity 
drove and drowned a number of Tories during the old 
war. 

Resting here for the night, Mr. Preston left next morn- 
ing for King's mountain, only fifteen miles distant. Riding 
leisurely along, admiring the wild honeysuckle, laurel and 
ivy, here so variegated and gaudy, and charmed with the 
mist-like appearance of the mountains far in his rear, he 
halted near the middle of the day at a wayside inn, called 
for dinner for himself and feed for his horse, and here 
occurred the incident the writer has taken such a round- 
about way to approach. When it is remembered that Mr. 
Preston was the grandson of General Campbell, who almost 
annihilated the Tories in the neighborhood of that inn, 
the incident that follows will be better understood. While 
dinner was preparing, he threw himself upon the grass in 
the yard under the trees. The landlady seemed to be ex- 
cited and uneasy, frequently passing and scrutinizing him 
very critically, with not the most pleasant cast of counte- 
nance in the world. Yv r hen the meal came on, and he was 
seated at the table, she planted herself opposite to and 
riveted her eyes upon him, with something like a savage 
scowl. Seeing that she had attracted his notice by her 
manner, she thus addressed him: 

"Young man, I 'spose you've noticed me lookin' at you, 
and I can't help it. I'd like to know your name and 
where you live." 

"Certainly, madam," replied Mr. Preston, "you shall 
be gratified. My name is Preston, and I live in Virginia." 



WILBURN WATERS. 191 

The old lady, as if relieved of a painful apprehension^ 
responded: "Well, well, I'm mighty glad your name is 
Preston, and it is a lucky thing for you that it is, but you 
look so much like the meanest and wickedest man I ever 
saw in my life, that it made my blood bile as soon as I sot 
eyes on you. His name was Campbell, the head-devil 
amo'io; a band of rebel robbers and murderers that fit and 
killed Colonel Furguson and a heap of our people on that 
ridge yonder a good many years ago, and the last time I 
saw my poor dear husband alive, that bad man was riding 
behind him sticking a bagnet in him to make him keep 
up with their hosses. If your name had been Campbell — 
and I was afraid it was, because you look so much like 
him — I don't know what the boys mout have done to you 
when they come into dinner." 

Mr. Preston, of course, didn't inform her of the relation- 
ship between General Campbell and himself, when he 
found that he was in the house of a widow of one of the 
Tories his grandfather had hung to a limb in the neighbor- 
ing forest. 

Mr. Preston often related this incident as one of the 
adventures of his boyhood, but the writer has related it 
for the purpose of giving those of his readers who have 
never seen the section through which he passed, a faint 
conception of the magnificent scenery of all that long and 
towering mountain range which seems to have been piled 
up for the purpose of putting a barrier between Virginia 
and North Carolina, and from the summit of which vast 
portions of the two great States may be seen from the 
same stand-point. He traveled the identical route in 1860 



192 WILBURN WATERS. 

pursued by Mr. Preston more than half a century before, 
then a mere bridle-path, now a broad turnpike, with here 
and there a beautiful farm in the plains, and on the gentler 
slopes the cabins of happy families, many of whom never 
saw a Yankee, and knew but little of the terrible struggle 
that so recently convulsed all the rest of the world. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MASSACRE AND CAPTIVITY OF THE PIONEERS OF ABB'S VALLEY. 

A book of the character of this, professing to illustrate 
the more prominent incidents of pioneer life among these 
mountains, would be very incomplete without some refe- 
rence to the Indian massacre in Abb's Valley in 1786. 
The following epitome, therefore, is made up both from 
what the writer has heard from the lips of some of the 
older citizens and what has been written by others, so 
blended that he finds the use of inverted commas imprac- 
ticable. 

Abb's Valley is situated in the northeast corner of Taze- 
well county, some fourteen miles from Jeffersonville and 
about the same from Burk's Garden in the southern corner, 
the three points forming a triangle. It is a very rich and 
picturesque valley, twelve miles long and less than a 
quarter wide, hemmed in between two ridges. A very 
remarkable feature in it is, that whilst there are numerous 
bold springs, there is no stream upon the surface. These 
springs break out from the hillsides, run a few paces and 
disappear, all combining to make a considerable subter- 
ranean creek which has been discovered in various places 
not far below the surface, and which eventually finds its 
way out and constitutes one of the principal sources of 
Bluestone, a tributary of New river, the latter being the 
principal tributary of the Kanawha, which empties into 
13 



194 WILBURN WATERS. 

the Ohio at Point Pleasant. Another singular feature is,, 
that in the ridges surrounding Abb's Valley are found the 
sources of four noted rivers — Kanawha to the east, Big 
Sandy and Guyandotte to the north, and Clinch to the 
west — the latter a tributary to the Tennessee. All rising 
within a mile or two of each other, they flow away 
in different directions, and finally unite in the Ohio hun- 
dreds of miles apart. The mountains from this point also 
form singular features in the topography of the country. 
Standing on top of Sandy Ridge (the northern boundary 
of the Valley), you see Clinch, Point Lick, Rich and other 
great ranges running parallel from east to west, and then 
a number of high and rugged ranges, each with its local 
name, all running transversely, or from south to north, 
and terminating at or near the Ohio river. The war- 
paths of the Indians were on the summits of the latter 
ranges. 

These peculiarities may seem of minor importance to the 
cisual observer, but to the man of thought they are of 
absorbing interest, affording pleasure in their contempla- 
tion, illustrating, as they do, the wonderful and magnifi- 
cently arranged topography of this unrivaled country. 

"But," a reader may say, "I don't care anything about 
your ridges and water-courses — let us have something 
about the early settlement of Abb's Valley and the Indian 
massacre you have promised." Very well, you shall be 
gratified — and in order to do so the more accurately and 
graphically, the writer will be under the necessity of draw- 
ing most of his facts from a concise history of Virginia 
compiled by Mr. Henry Howe in 1837, with whom he had 



WILBURN WATERS. 195 

the pleasure of an acquaintance and the honor of assisting 
to a trifling: extent. 

Abb's Valley (says Mr. Howe) was settled by James 
Moore in 1 775. He removed from Rockbridge county, and 
was induced to emigrate to this spot on account of its fer- 
tility and its adaptedness to stock-raising. There, with 
the aid of an old Englishman by the name of John Simp- 
son, he erected his cabin ; and with his pious wife, both being 
members of the Presbyterian Church, he erected his altar 
to God, cleared a piece of ground, and there resided with 
his family till they were destroyed, frequently going into 
fort, which was almost every summer. The first of his 
family who was captured was James, his second son, a lad 
in the fourteenth year of his age. This occurred on the 
7th of September, 1784. This son died some six or eight 
years ago, and the following facts were related by himself; 

He had been sent by his father to a distant field in the 
Valley to catch a horse to go to mill, when three Indians, 
one of them an old man and the others vouths, sorano- 
from behind a log and captured him. This was about the 
middle of the day, and they immediately proceeded with 
him on the journey to their towns on the Miami. As 
these were some three hundred miles distant, the tramp 
was of course painful and distressing to the boy. He 
finally arrived at Chillicothe, the principal Indian town, 
where he was very well treated and kept a year, when he 
was taken to Detroit and sold. We will here leave James 
Moore for a time and return to Abb's Valley and the stir- 
ring events that subsequently transpired. 

Such was the fertility of the soil and the excellency of 



196 WILBTJRN WATERS. 

the spontaneous grass, that Mr. Moore kept about one 
hundred horses and a large stock of, cattle, which princi- 
pally wintered themselves. On the 14th of July 1788 — 
not quite two years after the capture of his son — early in 
the morning, a gang of horses had come in from the range 
to the lick-blocks, about one hundred yards from the house, 
and Mr. Moore had gone out to salt them. Two men 
living with him had gone out to a field to reap wheat. 
The Indians, about thirty in number, who were lying in 
ambush watching the house, supposing that all the men 
were absent, rushed forward with all speed. As they ad- 
vanced they commenced firing, and killed three children 
in the yard. Mr. Moore attempted to get to the house, 
but finding it surrounded, ran past through a lot in which 
the house stood. When he reached the fence he made a 
halt, and was shot through with seven bullets. After he 
was shot he ran about forty yards and fell. He was then 
scalped by the Indians, and afterwards buried by the 
whites on the spot where he fell, and where his grave may 
still be seen. The two men who were reaping, hearing 
the firing and seeing the house surrounded, fled and 
alarmed the settlements — the nearest being six miles dis- 
tant. As soon as the alarm was given, Mrs. Moore and 
a young woman living with her by the name of Martha 
Ivins, barred the door. There was no man in the house 
except the old Englishman, John Simpson, and he was 
sick in bed on the loft. There were several guns in the 
house, but they were all empty. Martha Ivins took two 
of them up to Simpson, but she found him in a dying con- 
dition, having been shot in the head through a crack. 



WILBURN WATERS. 197 

The Indians then proceeded to cut down the door, during 
which time Martha Ivins lifted a plank and went under 
the floor, requesting Polly Moore (then only eight years 
old), who had the youngest child in her arms (which was 
crying), to leave it and come under also. Polly looked at 
the child a moment, clasped it to her heart, and deter- 
mined to share its fate. 

The Indians having broken into the house, took Mrs. 
Moore and her children — viz: John, Jane, Polly and 
Peggy — prisoners, set fire to the buildings and left. Mar- 
tha remained under the floor a short time, and then came 
out without being seen and hid under a log that lay across 
the spring branch. The Indians having tarried a short 
time for the purpose of catching horses, one of them sat 
down upon the log to fix his gunlock, when Miss Ivins, 
supposing he had seen her and was about to shoot, came 
out and gave herself up. They then started for their 
towns. Perceiving that John Moore was a boy weak in 
both body and mind, and unable to travel, they killed him 
the first day. A few days after they dashed out the brains 
of the babe against a tree. The journey was a very long 
and sore one, and for days together they were without 
food. They finally reached the Indian towns on the 
Miami, where Polly fell into the hands of an Indian and 
his squaw who were very kind to her. Mrs. Moore and 
her daughter Jane were burnt at the stake. Their tortures 
lasted some time, during which Mrs. Moore manifested the 
utmost Christian fortitude, at intervals conversing with 
her daughter Polly and Martha Ivins, and expressing 
great anxiety for the moment to arrive when her soul 
would soar away to the better inheritance. 



198 • WILBURN WATERS. 

We will now return to James Moore, who had been cap- 
tured nearly two years before, and was still in captivity at 
Detroit. Through a Shawnee, with whom he formed an 
acquaintance while at Chillicothe, he first learned the fate 
of his father's family about a year after it had occurred. 
His sister Polly and Martha Ivins subsequently fell into 
the hands of the whites not far from where James was 
living, and being ransomed they finally all got together, 
and after a weary travel through an unbroken wilderness 
for most of the way, they were fortunate enough to get 
back to their relatives im Rockbridge county. James 
Moore eventually returned to Abb's Valley, where he lived 
to a good old age, raised a large family, and died, as already 
stated, only a few years ago. 

Polly remained in Rockbridge. At the age of twelve 
she was baptized and received into the communion of the 
Presbyterian Church. She subsequently married the Rev. 
Samuel Brown, a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman. 
She became the mother of eleven children — of whom one 
died in infancy, another while quite young; one is a ruling 
elder in the Presbyterian Church, another married a pious 
physician, another a clergyman, five were Presbyterian 
ministers, and the remaining one a communicant of the 
church. One of her sons, a Presbyterian clergyman, was 
an assistant editor of a religious paper in Richmond a few 
years ago. She carried a copy of the New Testament with 
her throughout, her captivity, and her last legacy was a 
Bible to each of her children. 

Martha Ivins married a man by the name of Hummer, 
emigrated to Indiana, and reared a family of children* 



WILBURN WATERS. 199 

Two of her sons were Presbyterian ministers, and were, a 
few years ago, one in the Presbytery of Crawfordsville, and 
the other in the Presbytery of Iowa. 

The old place in Abb's Valley is now occupied by the 
son of James Moore, or his family, and the green fields and 
fruitful orchards are smiling, and the inhabitants as happy 
as if the stillness of that beautiful vale had never been 
broken by the war-whoop, or its soil stained with the 
blood of the pioneer who erected the first cabin for his 
family and the first altar to his Master, amid the tall trees 
and fragrant wild flowers. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE MASSACRE OF ARCHIBALD SCOTT AND HIS CHILDREN, 
AND THE CAPTIVITY OF HIS WIFE. 

The writer has somewhere read a very brief and imper- 
fect account of the murder of Archibald Scott and his 
children, the captivity of his wife, her sufferings among 
the Indians and subsequent escape ; but the following 
narrative is written from data furnished by Dr. James W. 
Sage, of Lee county, and Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, the 
youngest daughter of Mrs. Scott, now about ninety years 
of age, and living in the adjoining county of Russell. 
The statements, therefore, may be relied on as accurate. 

Archibald Scott was one of the pioneers of that quiet 
and beautiful little valley that nestles between Powell's 
mountain and Waldron's ridge in Lee county, along which 
Walling's creek winds its noisy and meandering way, and 
which is now the home of so many prosperous and happy 
families. This little valley was selected by the first set- 
tlers for its fertility, its water facilities, its superior range, 
romantic surroundings, and remoteness from the usual 
route of the predatory bands of Indians, who, at that day, 
occasionally left their towns beyond the Ohio to prey upon 
the scattered settlers on the Holston. Mr. Scott had mar- 
ried Miss Fanny Dickinson, of Russell county, many of 
whose relatives are still living there. Being the daughter 
of one of the brave and hardy pioneers of Castle's Woods, 



WILBURN WATERS. 



201 



she had been reared amid the dangers and excitements of 
frontier life, and hence was a companion upon whose cool- 
ness and fortitude her fearless and enterprising husband 
could depend in their new home on the verge of civiliza- 
tion. They removed to it in 1782— just nine years after 
Daniel Boone had passed along the same trace with his 
family on their way to the wilderness beyond the Cumber- 
land, and six years before the Indian raid on the Living- 
ston family on Holston. He located a corn-right to all that 
valuable tract of 1,000 acres, subsequently owned by Mr. 
Eobert Duff, and still in the possession of Mr. Duff's de- 
scendants. Mr. Scott erected his cabin on the head waters 
of Walling's creek, near the spot now occupied by the re- 
sidence of Mr. Thomas D. Duff. • 

Here, with his wife and little ones, he was living on the 
rewards of honest toil, and doubtless looking forward with 
prophetic vision to the day, not far in the future, when 
that rich and romantic valley, reposing so quietly among 
the mountains, would teem with wealth and a happy popu- 
lation. He bared his brawny arm and cleared the forest, 
and for three years his cabin was the home of contentment, 
plenty and domestic joys. In June, 1785, the family, 
after a day of toil, and partaking of their frugal meal, had 
retired to rest, without a thought, perhaps, of impending 
danger, and dreaming, perchance, of the luxuriant harvest 
so soon to be reaped and garnered. That pleasant summer 
day, as Mr. Scott was toiling amid the growing corn, he 
was seen and watched by a baud of about twenty Shawnee 
Indians, who, by some means, had been diverted from 
their usual route, and having observed the smoke arising 



202 WILBURN WATERS. 

from the cabin, were attracted towards it, and lay in am- 
bush on the mountain-side till night spread her curtain 
over the valley. When all was quiet they approached and 
entered, and the first notice the husband and father had of 
their presence was the gleam of the tomahawk that killed 
him in his bed. The leader of the band was the cruel and 
notorious half-breed Benge, who was killed three years 
after not many miles from the same place, as he was making 
his way to Big Stone Gap with the Livingston captives. 
After scalping Mr. Scott, they murdered and scalped his 
five children, plundered and burned the cabin, took Mrs. 
Scott prisoner, and started back on their long journey 
to their towns beyond the Ohio. Her sufferings during 
this journey, over steep mountains and through deep and 
rapid streams, were indescribable. When, faint and weary 
and foot-sore, she failed to travel as rapidly as her captors 
desired, they would slap her in the face with the bloody 
scalps of her husband and children. Being a woman of 
great strength, activity and nerve, she bore up wonderfully, 
and even surprised the savages by her endurance. 

After traveling about two hundred miles, and reaching 
one of their fworite hunting-grounds in Kentucky, not 
far from the Ohio, they stopped a few days to rest and 
hunt. It was decided among them that one of the Indians, 
when they reached their town on the Miami should have 
their captive for a wife, and hence he was designated to 
guard her while the rest were engaged in the hunt. Some 
hours after they had left, the Indian on guard fell into a 
profound sleep, seeing which, and making a noise that did 
not seem to disturb his slumbers, she determined to kill 



WILBDRN WATEES. 203 

him with his own tomahawk, which lay by his side, and 
then try to escape. She took the weapon and raised it 
above his head, but being weak and nervous from fatigue 
and distress of mind, she feared she might not be able to 
strike a fatal blow, and concluded to make an effort to es- 
cape. She made her way to a spring a short distance from 
the camp, waded along the branch to conceal her trail, and 
was soon safe from the pursuit of her guard in a thick 
canebrake. Hearing those who were hunting not a great 
way off, she waited until their whooping died in the dis- 
tance, when she started out on the long and perilous journey 
toward the Cumberland mountain, the dim outline of 
which she had seen as she crossed an elevation. For weeks 
she wandered through the unbroken forest, without food 
and almost destitute of raiment, subsisting on berries, 
barks and roots, and many days wandering so much out 
of her way as to make but a mile or two. Finally coming 
to a river (supposed to be the Kentucky), she found a path 
on the bank, which she followed. One morning, while 
following the path up stream, she heard the hunting party 
meeting her, and seeing a large sycamore near the path, 
she stepped behind it, and fortunately found it hollow 
where she concealed herself till the Indians had passed. 
A day or two after this, and before she had reached the 
head waters of the stream, she heard the Indians on her 
trail with dogs. She crawled into a hollow log that lay 
across the path, over which some of them jumped their 
ponies and others passing around the end without discover- 
ing her. 

After the Indians had disappeared she followed on very 



204 WILBURN WATERS. 

cautiously till she came to where the path forked. This 
perplexed her somewhat, not knowing which to take. She 
finally took the left, which seemed to be the plainest, when 
a bird flew past, touched her shoulder, and lighted in the 
other path. She kept on, however, but had proceeded but 
a few steps when the bird repeated its singular action. 
This led her to stop and reflect, and coming to the con- 
clusion that the bird was the spirit of one of her murdered 
children come to guide her through the wilderness, she 
took the other path, which proved to be the right one, and 
led her through what is now known as Pound Gap. She 
eventually made her way into Castle's Woods, where many 
of her relatives resided and still reside. 

After some years Mrs. Scott married Mr. Thomas John- 
son, for whom the county of that name in Tennessee was 
called. She raised a family of children, all of whom 
married and became useful and respectable members of 
society. She lived to an advanced age, and her ashes now 
repose on a little hillock near the old blacksmith shop, not 
far from the base of Clinch mountain at Hayter's Gap, in 
Russell county, Virginia. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

BRIEF HISTORY OF TWO COLLEGES. 

Emory and Henry. — As everything in connection with 
the origin of Emory and Henry will be interesting to the 
people of Southwestern Virginia, who, for forty years } 
have shared most largely of its benefits, the writer pro- 
poses to give all the little incidents that have come to his 
knowledge connected with its inception and final success. 

In 1832 or 1833, Holston Conference appointed Rev. 
Creed Fulton an agent to solicit subscriptions to establish 
a college at Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. He worked at 
it faithfully for a year or two, and, although a man of in- 
domitable energy, he became discouraged at the rueagre- 
ness of the subscriptions, and returned to his home in 
Southwestern Virginia to rest a little while and see after 
his children, who had been left motherless in the mean- 
time. 

On his way home to Grayson county, Virginia, he called 
at the residence of his old friend Tobias Smyth, Esq., 
within a mile of the spot subsequently selected for the 
location of the College, to return a horse he had borrowed 
from that gentleman, and to this trivial incident, in all 
probability, may be traced the origin of Emory and Henry. 

During the evening, Mr. Fulton made known his dis- 
couragements to Squire Smyth, who at once suggested that 
Conference ought to authorize the location of the College 
at any point within its bounds where the people would 



206 WILBURN WATERS. 

subscribe most liberally, and then said: "If you will pur- 
chase my neighbor Crawford's farm for the purpose, which 
is a very fine one, and can be bought for much less than 
its value, I will give you $500 to begin with." This ex- 
actly coincided with the views of Mr. Fulton, who, with 
those brilliant eyes of his sparkling with hope and deter- 
mination, rose to his feet and exclaimed "Good! I'll 
make that $500 worth 5,000 to the enterprise." 

It was then arranged between them that Mr. Fulton 
should present the claims of the new enterprise at a sale 
to take place at the residence of Mr. John Smyth, lately 
deceased, which he did, and made a good impression. It 
was the first public effort in behalf of Emory and Henry, 
at the house now occupied by Mrs. Polly Smyth, about 
one mile north of the College. 

Mr. Fulton and Squire Smyth then visited Colonel Wil- 
liam Byars, who, without hesitating a moment, gave his 
name for $600, and Mr. Alexander Findlay, of Abingdon, 
whose heart was also in the work, and who subsequently 
gave it nearly all his time and influence, as well as large 
loans from his own pocket, followed up with a subscription 
of $500. This was a splendid beginning according to 
numbers, and resulted in a grand consummation. 

The Conference of 1834 now came on at Knoxville, 
which Mr. Fulton attended, was reappointed agent, and 
Colonel Byars, Mr. Alexander Findlay and Squire Smyth 
were appointed an executive committee, with authority to 
purchase land and locate the College as soon as the collec- 
tions of Mr. Fulton would justify it. Washington county, 
Virginia, having given a much larger subscription than 
any other, the Crawford farm, before spoken of, of six 



WILBURN WATERS. 207 

hundred acres, was purchased at $8.50 per acre cash, and 
the work cotrmenced. It was deemed necessary to have a 
large farm, as the original design was to have a manual 
labor school, where the students could defray a portion of 
their expenses by agricultural or mechanical labor. But 
this plan wouldn't work and was relinquished in a year 
or two. 

The farm having been purchased for cash, and the agent 
not being able to make collections as promptly as necessary, 
Mr. Findlay, on his own responsibility and at his own risk, 
borrowed $5,000 from a bank in Knoxville. This virtually 
put the great work under way, which has been such a suc- 
cess and such a blessing to all this mountain region and to 
States adjacent, as well as to the whole S:mth. The money 
being paid and the deed obtained, the executive committee 
took possession, employed a farmer and laborers, went to 
fencing and repairing and made a crop. They did not 
submit plans and specifications and let to the lowest bidder, 
but purchased the materials and employed skilful me- 
chanics to superintend the work. Neither of the members 
of the committee had a knowledge of architecture, but Mr. 
Findlay drafted the plan of the College and Colonel Byars 
that of the Steward's Hall, both large and convenient 
buildings, though not quite as prepossessing in appearance as 
edifices of more modern style. They gave the work their 
unremitting attention, one or another of them daily super- 
intending till the buildings were completed and the school 
in operation. 

They took care to keep the credit of the institution at 
par, by paying the workmen and others promptly, and to 
do this, had to draw on their own private resources to the 



208 WILBURN WATERS. 

amount of some $12,000 at one time. Mr. Fulton per- 
formed his part faithfully and well, paid over as fast as he 
could collect, and thus to those four gentlemen, only one 
of them wealthy, and neither of them collegians, are the 
people of Southwestern Virginia indebted for Emory and 
Henry College, one of the best and most flourishing lite- 
rary institutions in the South or out of it — a College cost- 
ing about $25,000, now valued at $100,000, and compara- 
tively out of debt. Messrs. Byars, Smyth, Find lay and 
Fulton all lived to see the fruition of their labors, cares 
and sacrifices, but are now all "gathered to their fathers," 
while the noble institution they so largely contributed to 
found will be a monument to their generous devotion while 
one brick of the superstructure shall rest upon another. 

The enterprise, as already stated, was started in 1834, 
the corner-stone laid in 1836, and the school, under the 
management of Rev. Charles Collins, in full blast in 1838. 

President Collins was popular and successful, and built 
up the school very rapidly. He resigned in 1852, and 
was succeeded by Rev. E. E. Wiley, D. D., who had been 
a professor in the institution almost from the beginning, 
and under whose continued management to the present 
day it has enjoyed a reputation and success of which he, 
in common with the Holston Conference, may justly feel 
proud. The school all these years has had the benefit of 
Professor Langley's scholarly attainments; and Professors 
Davis, Buchanan and Yawter, who so ably fill their several 
chairs in the faculty, were all distinguished graduates of 
the institution, as was, also, Professor William E. Peters, 
now Professor of Latin in the University of Virginia. 



WILBUEN WATEES. 209 

Martha Washington. — Martha Washington College, at 
Abingdon, has a reputation and efficiency equal to any 
Female College in the South, and promises to become one 
of the most popular and prosperous. The idea of its erec- 
tion originated in the minds of a few individual members 
of the Abingdon Lodge of Odd Fellows, all of them 
without patronage, influence or means. However, believ- 
ing themselves to be right and the enterprise plausible and 
worthy of persistent effort, they kept the ball in motion. 
The magnitude of the work to be undertaken by a body 
of not more than fifty men, most of them living from 
" hand to mouth," was regarded by the masses' as visionary, 
if not absolutely preposterous. Those who submitted the 
wild proposition, as it was called, like the "Sainted Mar- 
tyr," kept "pegging away," notwithstanding the ridicule 
and animadversions of wiser heads, until at length, to test 
the matter and see if there was anything feasible in it, a 
committee was appointed by the Lodge to consider and 
report upon the proposition — with the purpose, no doubt, 
by the majority, to put the question to rest forever; but 
the report of the committee brought up discussion, discus- 
sion begat inquiry, inquiry resulted in effort, and effort 
eventually struggled to success. A subscription was started 
in the Lodge, when four members — Messrs. Beverly R. 
Johnston, T. G. McConnell, William King Heiskell and 
D. C. Dunn — neither of them wealthy, each subscribed 
$600, and some fifteen or twenty others from $100 up to 
$500 each. This was a promising beginning, when the 
14 



210 WILBURN WATERS. 

whole Lodge became canvassers, and the aggregate amount 
soon ran up to $25,000. 

Plans were now entered into, twelve acres of land pur- 
chased at one hundred dollars per acre, contracts concluded, 
and the walls of an immense brick structure erected and 
covered with tin. Here the fund became exhausted, the 
work suspended, and before an effort was made to resume 
the walls became warped and cracked, and the whole 
edifice, after an expenditure of §30,000, was discovered to 
be a failure and abandoned. The spirit, however, to have 
a college had gone abroad, and ''agitate, agitate, agitate," 
became the watch-word. The Lodge, finding itself hope- 
lessly scotched and unable to proceed, finally determined 
to shift the labor and responsibility to shoulders better 
able to bear them, and proposed to turn the job over to 
the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South. After a vast amount of discussion, consideration 
and casting about — weighing the chances of success and 
estimating the advantages to be derived — that body took 
charge of it, assumed the payment of a debt of §10,000, 
relinquished the half-finished edifice, disposed of the ma- 
terials for about §8,000, redeeded the land to its former 
owner, and purchased the splendid mansion and grounds 
of Colonel T. L. Preston in the suburbs of the village 
at $22,000, payable in five equal instalments. All these 
transactions occurred from 1850 to 1859, and in 1860 the 
school was started under the presidency of Rev. William 
A. Harris, A. M., at present in charge of the Wesleyan 
Female Institute at Staunton, the only Female College, 
perhaps, under the patronage of the Baltimore Conference. 



WILBURN WATERS. 211 

Martha Washington opened prosperously, matriculating, 
the first regular term, one hundred and fifty young ladies, 
fifty of whom were boarders. The war coming on, the 
patronage became precarious and fluctuating, and rumors 
of raids frequently scattered the pupils like partridges on 
the mountain. President Harris, by unflagging energy, 
devotion and skill, kept the machinery in motion, paid 
by his labors, with the assistance of an agent, a portion of 
the debt — which now amounted to thirty-odd thousand 
dollars — and gave the institution, both at home and abroad, 
a reputation equal to any school in the South or the Union. 
He was succeeded in 1865 by Rev. B. Arbogast, A. M., 
under whose management, from the pressure of debt and 
other causes, it was not as prosperous as it had been, though 
the curriculum was of the highest grade, and the faculty 
all that could be desired. 

President Arbogast resigned in 1872, and was succeeded 
by Major R. W. Jones, of Petersburg, under whose man- 
agement, after a struggle for life, it is now marching on, 
it is hoped and believed, to an assured and brilliant suc- 
cess — most of the debt having been liquidated, and its 
halls again filling up with youth and beauty. 

The establishment of Martha Washington has been the 
incentive for starting two other female colleges in Abing- 
don — one under the patronage of the Presbyterian and the 
other under that of the Roman Catholic Church. The 
former is called the "Stonewall Jackson Institute," is 
mcst admirably managed under the presidency of Mr. T. 
D. Davidson, and deserves a much more liberal patronage 
than it is receiving, and the latter, under the title of 



212 WILBURN WATERS. 

"Academy of Visitation," managed by a Mother Superior 
and a corps of accomplished Sisters. These schools are all 
well patronized, but not half as liberally as they should 
be, situated, as they are, in one of the most healthy and 
romantic localities in the South, and in the midst of a 
highly moral and refined society 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

INCIDENTS OP THE "WAR. 

For the purpose of avoiding monotony as far as possible, 
the writer will venture to enlarge the circle in which his 
thoughts have been revolving, and give the reader a chapter 
of incidents growing out of the late "unpleasantness," 
showing, in some sort, the manner in which our "beloved 
brethren" beyond the border waged war upon the South — 
a war inaugurated ostensibly for the purpose, as they 
termed it, of perpetuating " the best government the world 
ever saw," but really for the emancipation of the "man 
and brother" — to wrest from the Southern people, at the 
point of the bayonet, that which was guaranteed to them 
by the compact under which the South became part and 
parcel of the Union. But it is not proposed to argue this 
question here and now, as it has been settled for " time and 
eternity," but to call to mind some of the incidents of the 
struggle between might and right — in other words, to give 
an incident or two, partially coming under the observation 
of the writer, and as related to him by eye-witnesses. 

There is not a man in all the country, it may be pre- 
sumed, who has not heard of John Morgan, the gallant 
Kentuckian, who was such a terror to the " Boys in Blue," 
and who thrashed them out in more than forty battles 
with less than half their numbers. Well, to make a long 
story short, he had his headquarters at the residence of 



214 WILBURN WATERS. 

Judge John A. Campbell in the vicinity of Abingdon for 
some time, and the writer was proud to have the pleasure 
and honor of his acquaintance. Abingdon being located 
immediately upon the great highway from North to South, 
as well as from East to West, subjected it not only to the 
passing and foraging squadrons of our own army, but to 
the more fearful and destructive raids of the enemy. From 
the time of General Burnside's entrance into East Ten- 
nessee, in September, 1863, to the close of the war in 
April, 1865, our people had scarcely an hour of quiet, and 
were constantly kept, both night and day, in the most un- 
happy and anxious suspense. 

All the men of the mountains capable of bearing arms, 
as well as many who were incapable, and who had not 
fallen upon the bloody fields along the Rappahannock and 
Rapidan, were with Lee and Johnston hundreds of miles 
away, while their homes and interests, their wives and 
little ones, were all at the mercy of our own stragglers and 
traitors, and in perpetual dread of the approach of the 
lawless and inhuman raiders of Averill, Burbridge, Stone- 
man and others, whose numbers enabled them to form a 
cordon around us as fearful as the folds of an anaconda. 

Shortly after Burnside's entrance into and occupation 
of Knoxville, one hundred and forty miles west of us, 
the gallant General Morgan, with his handful of brave 
Kentuckians and Mississippians, fought his way through 
interposing legions, and arrived at Abingdon for the pur- 
pose of recruiting his worn-out men and horses. Knowing 
that his mere name had terror enough in it to hold ten 
times his number at bay, and finding that the enemy 



WILBURN WATERS. 215 

lingered upon his trail, after a few days of rest the bugle 
called his men together, and he returned to meet the foe 
as he slowly and cautiously advanced toward the Virginia 
line. Arriving at Greensville, Tennessee, midway between 
Abingdon and Knoxville, after a fatiguing march of a day 
and night, he bivouacked his little command of five hun- 
dred men a short distance from the village, and entered 
the town with his staff to spend the night under the roof 
of a friend — a luxury he but rarely enjoyed. 

By some means — and by whom has never been satisfac- 
torily ascertained — information was communicated to the 
enemy sixteen miles off that General Morgan and his staff 
were sleeping in the village, while his worn and wearied 
men were encamped some half-mile or more away. Not- 
withstanding scouts were out and the town supposed to be 
securely picketed, overwhelming numbers of the enemy, 
conducted by treachery, arrived before the dawn and 
quietly surrounded the place, thus cutting off the General 
and his staff from the little force outside. 

Being aroused from his slumbers by the lady of the 
house, and informed that the town was swarming with 
Blue-coats, and the house surrounded, the General dressed 
and armed himself very calmly and quietly, and said to 
the few officers with him : "Gentlemen, they have at last 
caught us napping, through the treachery of pretended 
friends, but don't surrender, and let us sell our lives as 
dearly as possible." They then rushed out in a body and 
attempted to cut their way through, but were of course 
soon overpowered by numbers. Two of the officers es- 
caped, four or five were captured, but John Morgan, with 



216 WILBURN WATERS. 

a revolver in each hand, kept a host of assailants at bay 
for some time, and was finally murdered by a mob that 
hadn't the courage to take him alive. Thus ended the 
brilliant career of John H. Morgan, when as brave a soul 
as ever tenanted a human body winged its flight to another 
world. As soon as it was known that life was extinct — 
and some say before — his body was thrown across the back 
of a horse and paraded through the streets amid the jeers 
and jibes of a regiment of Michiganders, a score of whom 
would not have faced him when alive. His body was 
brought to Abingdon, where his wife was then sojourning, 
and buried. After a short time it was removed to a vault 
in Holywood cemetery, near Richmond, and eventually to 
Lexington, Kentucky, where it now reposes with the dust 
of kindred who had gone before. 

General Basil W. Duke, his brother-in-law, succeeded 
General Morgan, who was as popular with the command 
as his gallant and lamented predecessor. Not long after, 
most of the few scattered troops who had been left here to 
guard the railroad were ordered to other points, which, 
being known by the enemy in Tennessee, Stoneman and 
Burbridge, with a cavalry force of some five thousand, 
made their celebrated raid. It was a cold night in Decem- 
ber, 1864, when the whole face of the country was covered 
with ice and sleet. It was not positively known that the 
enemy was anywhere near, although a continual dread of 
their coming pervaded the public mind. They entered the 
quiet village stealthily, though they might have done so 
boldly, and surrounded nearly every house, before the in- 
habitants were aware of their presence. In less than an 



WILBUEX WATERS. 217 

hour every store in the place was broken open and ran- 
sacked, and what the marauders could not carry away they 
destroyed. The main body then passed on a mile or two, 
where they remained during the night and part of the next 
day, leaving a company of about forty men, under the com- 
mand of a man by the name of Wyatt, to prosecute the 
pillage and burn the town. The only persons here being 
women and children, with a few old men and boys, this 
was no hazardous undertaking. 

Wyatt being a native of the place, and having been ar- 
rested here in the early part of the war under the suspicion 
of being a spy, he took peculiar pleasure in wreaking his 
vengeance upon those for whom he entertained feelings of 
enmity and revenge. After they had gorged their appetites 
for plunder, they applied the torch, and in a very short 
time a large portion of the town was in flames, and the 
women and children frantically rushing from their burn- 
ing dwellings. All this while Wyatt and his brave and 
humane companions were riding exultingly through the 
streets, enjoying the alarm and anguish of their helpless 
victims. In the midst of their exultation a wild yell was 
heard at one end of the street, and in a moment thirteen of 
Morgan's men dashed in among the forty mounted Fed- 
rals, when the latter, instead of meeting the little handful 
of scouts like men, turned and fled, a dozen pursued by 
one. In less than ten minutes Wyatt and four of his men, 
who had been exhibiting their gallant daring among shriek- 
ing women and children, bit the dust, twenty were captured 
and relieved of their horses, arms and trappings, and the 
balance chased right into the ranks of the five thousand 



218 WILBURN WATERS. 

bivouacked but a couple of miles off. This, although it may 
never before have been written, will be recorded in future 
history as one of the most gallant feats of the war. 

The raiders then passed on, left some forty or fifty of 
their number near the neighboring town of Marion, where 
they met with General Duke, with less than a regiment of 
followers, went to the Saltworks and made war on the ket- 
tles, and hurriedly passed on through the mountains back 
into Tennessee, leaving their line of march strewn with 
those for whom our people had to dig holes in the ground, 
stopped in their career, some by being frozen to death, and 
others by the bullets of the thirteen scouts, who never quit 
the trail till the enemy re-entered their own lines. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE STREAMS AND SPRINGS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY. 

This is a subject which, to the casual reader, may seem 
to involve but little of interest, yet the writer must confess 
that nothing in this hill country has excited more of his 
wonder and admiration than its streams and springs, but 
the purpose of the present chapter is to show the magnifi- 
cent water-power the Lord has given to a people whose 
lands are pregnant with minerals and whose mountains are 
filled with coal and covered with timber, unexcelled in 
quality and variety in any part of the broad Union. In 
a preceding chapter a general outline of the streams is 
given, or rather the remarkable fact that the three larger, 
which drain the county, all run from east to west, while 
all the rest, and they are almost countless, run north and 
south, but as no particular description is given of them, 
it is proposed to do so now, for the benefit of readers who 
may see and appreciate their wonderful advantages. The 
three principal streams, as has been before stated, are the 
North, Middle and South Forks of Holston, not varying 
much in size, each of them, perhaps, averaging one hun- 
dred yards in width, running ordinarily five miles an hour. 
The distance in a straight line of the North and South 
Forks, from their sources in Wythe county to their con- 
fluence at Kingsport, in Tennessee, is about eighty miles, 
but their windings of course make them many miles longer. 



220 WILBURN WATERS. 

The Middle Fork is only about half the length of the 
others, uniting with the South Fork about six miles south- 
east of Abingdon. They all head in high table land cross- 
ing the country north and south connecting two ranges of 
mountains with transverse courses, and not more than a 
mile from the sources of streams on the opposite side of 
the "divide" that run in an exactly opposite direction. 
That "divide" is Mount Airy, the highest point crossed 
by a railroad in Virginia. 

After those streams unite at Kingsport, they still retain 
the name of Holston, and form a beautiful river, from 
three hundred to four hundred yards wide, clear, rapid, 
deep and serpentine. Some twenty-five miles below 
Knoxville a comparatively small stream, called "Little 
Tennessee," comes into the Holston at right angles, when 
the latter loses its name and takes that of the former, and 
from this point till it empties into the Ohio it is known 
by the name of Tennessee. The three Forks of Holston 
are wildly romantic, at one moment dashing madly be- 
tween beetling precipices, and the next winding gently 
through green meadows — again chafing and pelting against 
the basis of the mountains, and then dashing away and 
hiding themselves among the lesser hills, or smoothly 
gliding among tall hemlocks and sugar maples. 

Many of the smaller streams, which run at' right angles 
with and feed the three larger, are remarkable for their 
weird beauty and the rapid flow of their waters. As be- 
fore stated, their name is legion, but the writer must give 
a short description of a few of them. Wolf creek, the 
eastern prong of which passes through Abingdon, and has 



WILBURN WATERS. 221 

its source but little over a mile from the village, attains 
sufficient size to propel a mill in that short distance, and 
although not more than ten miles long, it more than dou- 
bles its dimensions, and plunges down a rocky declivity 
of some one hundred feet in as many yards, into a se- 
cluded little valley, through which it goes dancing into 
the South Fork of Holston. Opposite the source of this, 
and not more than three hundred paces from it, but run- 
ning in exactly the opposite direction, is a stream about 
the same size and with the same general features, known 
by the name of Tool's creek, only about six miles long, 
which reaches the North Fork by a succession of leaps, 
having a fall of something like one hundred feet to the 
mile its whole length. In this creek, for two miles or 
more, hemmed in by precipitous hills, covered with a 
splendid growth of timber, there is a succession of beau- 
tiful cascades, which sport and sparkle in the sunlight, 
often embellished with the colors of the prism. Two 
miles west of this, having its source in the same range of 
hills, is auother near the same size and length, which, for 
the grandeur of the thing, seems to have united its cas- 
cades into one; and, to show what a big waterfall may 
look like, it leaps more than one hundred feet at two 
bounds, and then flows off as modestly as if it had no 
sublime attractions. 

Two miles further west, heading in the same range, 
running in the same direction and about the same dis- 
tance, is a third, varying but little from the others in size, 
^lso with numerous cascades, and among them one, as if 
to outdo its neighbor, makes a single plunge of seventy 



222 WILBURN WATERS. 

feet. "Winding along the margin of the latter, sometimes 
on one side and then on the other, is a well graded mud 
pike, and each of the others has a tolerable wagon road 
from one end to the other. These streams, being fed by 
innumerable springs, grow very rapidly in their short 
career, furnish sufficient power for any sort or amount of 
machinery, and are rarely diminished by drouth. 

Still farther west, ten or a dozen miles, heading in the 
same range and running in the same direction, is another 
stream somewhat larger than the others, called Abrara's 
creek, which flows its whole length through a wild and rich 
but uncultivated country, with a noisy and maddened rush. 
On its way to the North Fork it passes through a deep, 
dark and gloomy chasm, bounded by high perpendicular 
walls of solid limestone, and fretting and foaming like an 
impatient steed, it pitches over a precipice -sixty feet to a 
narrow ledge, and thence another plunge of forty feet into 
a large round basin worn deep in the solid rock at the 
base. This is one of the most magnificent waterfalls in 
all this hill country, yet these scenes are so common, and 
this one being somewhat out of the way, but few of the 
citizens of the county have ever visited it. From below 
it looks like an unbroken sheet — a perfect bridal veil. 
When the stream is at its lowest stage, it falls into the 
basin in the form of a heavy mist, and when the sun is in 
a certain position the cataract midway is spanned by a 
brilliant crescent. 

It is a remarkable peculiarity that immediately opposite 
the streams above alluded to, as well as many intermediate 
ones not named, and having their sources on the opposite 



WILBURN WATERS. 223 

side of the same range of hills, and running in exactly 
the opposite direction, are precisely similar streams, having 
the same characteristics. The sources of most of them are 
not a stone's throw apart. 

It has been stated in this as well as in a preceding chap- 
ter, that the Holstons run from east to west, the North 
Fork sweeping the base of Clinch and the South Fork the 
base of Iron mountain. On top of the former rises a 
stream called Brumley, which runs due east along its sum- 
mit several miles, and then making a short curve runs 
several miles due south to the North Fork. Immedi- 
ately opposite the source of Brumley, and running about 
the same distance in the same direction at the base of Iron 
mountain, is a stream called Beaver Dam, which makes 
the same sort of a curve nearly opposite the curve in 
Brumley, and in about the same distance finds, its way 
into the South Fork. These streams are almost exactly 
alike, their waters never become more than slightly disco- 
lored, are almost as cold as the springs in the valleys, and 
are filled with speckled trout. 

It has taken so much space to describe a few of the 
streams, there is not room enough left to say much about 
the springs. It may be said, however, they are every- 
where, from the bottoms of the lowest valleys to the sum- 
mits of the highest mountains. There are a score in this 
country that afford sufficient water for light machinery, 
and two or three still larger that have mills within fifty 
yards of the fountain-heads, and which are never still for 
want of water. There are several so deep that no bottom 
has ever been found. Among the rest there is one that 



224 WILBURN WATERS. 

ebbs and flows at regular intervals. This is a little sin- 
gular at an elevation of two thousand feet above the level 
of the sea, but those who are familiar with Natural Phi- 
losophy and understand the principle of a siphon, will not 
be at a loss to account for the phenomenon. 

Mineral springs are numerous and of all varieties. On 
one farm in this county and within a circle of less than a 
quarter of a mile, there are six springs, viz: a chaly- 
beate, alum, magnesia, sulphur, limestone and freestone. 
It is doubtful whether any other part of the continent can 
furnish as great a variety in as small an area, and they are 
all bold and ever-flowing. They are called Washington 
Springs, fifteen miles east of Abingdon, near Glade Spring 
depot, and are becoming quite a place of resort for both 
invalids and seekers of pleasure. The "Seven Springs," 
noted for Alum Mass, are within three miles of the latter 
group. 

The foregoing should suffice to convince the reader that 
Southwestern Virginia is most bountifully supplied with 
water — none of your sluggish, lazy streams, but those that 
go leaping and romping off, as if in a hurry to mingle 
with the Father of Waters, and wake the echos of the 
mountains as they tumble and dash along toward their 
destination. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

STORY OF A HAUNTED BALL ROOM. 

This chapter is introduced merely for the purpose of 
showing that credulity has not been entirely rooted out 
of the world by the march of mind and intellectual cul- 
ture, and only needs, in the most intelligent communities, 
the aid of necromancy to make it develop itself. 

A number of years ago — perhaps in the summer of 
1840 — the quiet and orderly people of Abingdon and 
vicinity were startled and bewildered by strange and 
mysterious noises in a large frame building in the centre 
of the place, occupied as a grog-shop and for other disrepu- 
table and obscene purposes. It was a place at which the 
most degraded white people of both sexes, negroes and 
lewd characters nightly congregated to carry on their Bac- 
chanalion revels and other immoral and vicious pastimes. 
It was just such a building as ghosts are supposed to love 
to inhabit, where the nights are dark and drear, and the 
storm-fiends are wandering abroad. It was a very large 
one-story structure, built expressly for a ball-room, but at 
the time of the occurrences now to be related, the one large 
room had a bar partitioned off in one corner, and a small 
bed-room in another, and the whole ceiled inside with 
plank instead of laths and plaster. There was no access 
to the attic or loft save through two stove-pipe holes, and 
these were too small for even a child to pass through. 
15 



226 WILBURN WATERS. 

One dark aud stormy night in midsummer, after all 
honest people should have retired to rest, the people of the 
village were still, and the negroes and their more degraded 
white companions were sweltering and snoring on the floor 
of the old ball-room, not only the inmates, but the sleepers 
in adjacent tenements were roused from their slumbers by 
strange and startling sounds. While from one part of the 
large, dark room came deep and suppressed tones of appa- 
rent agony, from another came the clank of chains, and 
from a third such groans as might be uttered by a strang- 
ling giant — not all at once, but alternating — and to lend 
horror to the unearthly intonations, an occasional shriek 
floated out on the murky night air. Men in wonder 
gathered in groups, each asking the other for an explana- 
tion, whilst others, in larger companies, searched the prem- 
ises inside and out for a solution of the mysterious clamor. 

It it said if you touch a tree on which a katydid is sing- 
ing its nocturnal ditty, its voice will be hushed in an in- 
stant. So with the invisible occupants of the ball-room. 
While search was being made inside, the room was as 
silent as a charnel-house, but the moment the searchers 
left it, the hideous uproar rolled on. 

This didn't last but for a night or a week, but for 
months, until rumors, many of them of course greatly ex- 
aggerated, had gone abroad all over the country, and dis- 
tant journals speculated upon the mysterious manifestations 
in the haunted ball-room at Abingdon. Night after night, 
not alone, but in company with others, has the writer of 
these pages stood on the outside of the door of that demon- 
infested room, and seen strong-nerved men turn pale and 
tremble as the infernal racket swept on. 



WILBURN WATERS. 227 

At length the disturbance became insufferable, and a 
number of citizens pledged themselves to unravel the 
riddle, if within the power of mortal men to do it. But, 
as it was pretty well understood that the ghosts (for there 
seemed to be legions of them) were not communicative to 
multitudes, a number of persons divided off in pairs, and 
arranged to try it two at a time, occupying the small bed- 
room partitioned off in one corner, which was furnished 
with a bed, table, chairs, &c, and a big double-barrel shot- 
gun. Accordingly, the first adventure fell upon two men 
with whom all the citizens were acquainted, one of them, 
by the way, a brother of the noted Senator Brownlow, and 
the other a very sedate but superstitious man, who had 
long lived in a building in front of the ball-room, to which 
the latter formed au L. They repaired to the room soon 
after nightfall, each armed with a revolver and provided 
with a pack of cards and a bottle of "mountain dew," and 
after playing a game or two of poker, imbibing a little of 
the "dew," and whistling jigs to keep their courage up, 
they retired to rest, persuading themselves to hope, if not 
to believe, that the mysterious visitants would scarcely 
dare to hold their accustomed revel in such a presence. 
But they were mistaken. About the "witching hour of 
night" when ghosts most love to wander, and when all 
was still save the sighing night-wind as it chanted its 
mournful cadences through the open crevices, they were 
startled from their uneasy slumbers by noises to which, as 
they described them, bedlam, in its wildest ravings, were 
as gentle as the breathings of a lute. Their light was 
burning brightly, and as they sprang from the bed, and 



228 WILBURN WATERS. 

looking at each other suspiciously for a moment, as if each 
supposed the other to be an apparition, standing face to 
face, dumfoundered and trembling, while the fearful tumult 
rolled on in the outer room, they were soon brought to a 
realization of their surroundings. Without exchanging a 
word, or attempting" to make an investigation of the matter 
they were there to solve, they both seemed to be moved by 
the same impulse at the same moment, and went through 
a window almost as rapidly as if they had been shot from 
a mortar. Next day they had marvelous stories to tell of 
the fearful things they had seen and heard, of what they 
said to the ghosts and the ghosts said to them, but they 
could never after be either coaxed or driven into that part 
of town after daylight had disappeared. They have both 
long since gone to the land of shadows, and carried with 
them to the tomb an implicit belief in the supernatural. 

Two others, who claimed to have more nerve and daring 
than their predecessors, took their turn the following night, 
with about the same result, as far as any satisfactory dis- 
covery was made. Like the others, they claimed to have 
seen and talked with the hobgoblins, and to have driven 
them from the building, but two or three gentlemen who 
entered the little bed-room early next morning were per- 
suaded that the driving was the other way, as two pairs of 
boots and two hats had been left, which were about the 
size of those worn by the men who had scared away the 
ghosts. From every indication, another couple had escaped 
through the same widow with about the same speed. 

The third night — and there is said to be a charm in that 
magic number — the adventure was rather more interest- 



WILBURN WATERS. 229 

ing than either of the preceding. The two persons now 
selected were in middle life, and had long occupied rooms 
in the front building, in close proximity to that in which 
the ghosts held their nightly carnival. It was believed 
they would solve the knotty problem, if it really were not 
supernatural, and within the scope of mortal ken. One 
of them was tall and as straight as an Indian, possessed of 
more than ordinary intelligence and dignity, supposed to 
be a stranger to fear, ridiculed the idea of ghosts and all 
sorts of superstition, and scouted the notion of a super- 
natural agency producing a natural sound, upon philo- 
sophic grounds. The other was the writer of these pages. 
It was a dark, drizzly night, the mercury up toward blood 
heat, and the fitful flow of wind that found ingress through 
the broken panes came heated as the breath of a furnace. 
We entered at the hour of ten at night — just two hours 
before the usual visits of the apparitions, that I, for my 
part, was not over-anxious to hear or see, or communicate 
with in any manner or form. My companion was armed 
with a revolver, a bottle of apple-jack, and a Bible, and I 
with a Presbyterian Confession of Faith, a copy of the 
National Intelligencer, and two North Carolina tallow 
candles — two-thirds cotton and the balance fat. 

Neither of us belonged to a church, but before we got 
out of the building, as the sequel will show, we would 
have felt more comfortable if we had belonged to all the 
denominations and auxiliary societies in Christendom. 
The night being so excessively warm and oppressive, we 
divested ourselves of outward adornments to an unmen- 
tionable extent, and sat down to read and meditate upon 



230 WILBURN WATERS. 

the looked-for developments of the coming midnight, and 
to train our nerves for the tension to which they might be 
subjected. I had selected the Confession of Faith and the 
National Intelligencer, because I had heard that a coroner's • 
jury had once decided that an unknown dead man was 
both a Christian and a gentleman, because the Confession 
was found in one of his pockets and the Intelligencer in 
the other. The ghosts, therefore, if they were as intelli- 
gent and moral as ghosts ought to be, might arrive at the 
same couclusion as to my character, and deal all the more 
gently with me. 

My companion, with the view, it may be presumed, of 
employing our waiting hours the more profitably, read 
aloud from the Word, which he had turned down in dog- 
ears, and instead of dispelling our gloomy apprehensions 
by the soul-stirring Songs of Solomon, or the grander in- 
spirations of Isaiah or Jeremiah, chose the sombre stories 
of the Witch of Endor and the rattling of the dry bones 
in the valley of Jehosaphat — themes, as I thought, in my 
then state of mind, not peculiarly appropriate to the place 
or the occasion. 

After reading all such portions of Scripture as were sur- 
charged with ghosts, hobgoblins and frightful incantations, 
or as many of them as his memory could conveniently call 
up, he very reverently closed the volume, and with uplifted 
eyes and pious emotion, very much surprised me by saying 
"Let us pray!" We knelt down, and solemn as were the 
occasion and the circumstances, it certainly would have 
been a scene more ludicrous than sacred to a spectator, had 
he seen us kneeling amid barrels and bottles of villainous 



WILBURN WATERS. • 231 

whisky, each attired in our nether garments, and nothing 
else! I have often since wondered how I refrained from 
irreverent merriment in the very presence of the dreaded 
demons of the haunted ball-room, as my companion, with 
lengthened visage and solemn accents, read the sacred page 
and uttered his supplications, with nothing upon him but 
his spectacles and but one garment more than Adam wore 
when he made that apron of fig leaves. 

Our devotions ended, we retired, not to rest, but to 
await the coming of the mysterious visitants, who thus far 
had proved the "masters of the situation." True to their 
habits, as the echo of the last peal of the iron tongue of 
time that hung in the Courthouse steeple floated away on 
the midnight air, the invisible intruders announced their 
advent by manifestations not less hideous than those which 
startled the ear of Tam o'Shanter at "auld Kirk Alloway." 
My companion bounded from the bed as if he had been 
upon the apex of a volcano, and I felt as if I should have 
liked to crawl into an augur-hole and pull it in after me. 
He grasped the lighted candle and boldly stepped out into 
the large, dark room where the ghostly revel was in full 
blast, I gallantly bringing up the rear with feelings about 
as pleasant as a malefactor may be supposed to enjoy on 
the way from the prison to the scaffold. My companion, 
however, marched boldly to the centre of the room, and 
holding the candle above his head with one hand, and 
lifting the other with his eyes toward the ceiling, exclaimed, 
in measured and solemn tones: "In the name of God and 
high heaven, who are you and ichat do you want?" This 
was enough for the ghosts, enough for me, and enough for 



232 • WILBURN WATERS. 

my companion. In an instant the light was extinguished, 
and the din that followed was indescribably horrible. 
Finding in the darkness that my friend had left me, I 
looked towards the window, and the last I saw of him that 
night was his flag of truce streaming out behind as he 
leaped through the window, in which performance I was 
not an instant behind him. J^ext morning the tracks of 
four bare feet were found in the mud beneath the window, 
and full garments for two bipeds hanging on chairs in the 
bed-room. I cannot vouch for my friend's subsequent 
adventures, as he moved away and became high in official 
station "away down South in Dixie," but it was my first 
and last attempt to hunt up and ventilate an apparition. 

Our adventure and failure becomiug public, no more 
"hunting in couples" was done in that direction, and the 
ghosts were permitted to revel on in unmolested freedom 
till they grew weary of their occupation. A. few months 
after, it leaked out that two or three citizens, for the pur- 
pose of breaking up the immoral and vicious habits of the 
frequenters of the doggery and brothel in the ball-room, 
had fixed up contrivances between the weather-boarding 
and plank ceiling, which were operated with strings and 
wires from the garret, and with a "dumb-bell," chains and 
a wooden ball at the end of a rope, made the mysterious 
noises which were supposed, even by some intelligent 
people, to be supernatural. They had sawed out a hole 
through the weather-boarding in an upper room of tiie 
front building, then in the occupancy of one of them, 
which gave them entrance into the garret over the ball- 
room, which none suspected, all being satisfied that there 



WILBURN WATERS. 233 

was no way of getting into that part of the honse except 
through one of the stope-pipe holes, which, as before said, 
were too small even to admit a child. The whole thing 
was ingeniously arranged and managed, and completely 
successful in breaking up the worst den of iniquity that 
ever infested the refined and orderly town of Abingdon. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

MONTICELLO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 

As but few persons, comparatively, in Southwestern 
Virginia have visited Monticello, I may be pardoned for 
introducing a short description here, which may interest a 
reader here and there. 

On my way to attend the commencement exercises of 
Wesleyan Female Institute at Staunton, in June, 1870, 
an accident to the train caused a misconnection at Lynchburg. 
I had my choice between waiting for the passenger train 
next morning, or taking the freight train just before sun- 
down and going on to Charlottesville that night. I chose 
the latter, and stowing myself away among bales and 
boxes and a crowd of sweltering and highly perfumed 
"wards of the nation," in the conductor's caboose, I had the 
pleasure of jolting into Charlottesville about an hour after 
midnight, sought, and after sundry thumps and a volley 
of mild imprecations, succeeded in rousing a stupid Sena- 
gambian of the male persuasion, who struck a light and 
conducted me to a room about as far from the base as the 
statue on the monument at Baltimore, where I soon forgot 
all my troubles. It seemed to me that I hadn't been 
asleep more than an hour when I began to dream of 
cyclones and earthquakes, and on being aroused to con- 
sciousness, discovered that my dreams originated in the 
whanging and deafening clangor of the breakfast gong, 



WILBURN WATERS. 235 

which a stumpy negro was banging with as much blood- 
thirsty earnestness as if he had been "a heathen Chinee" 
in the van of a Celestial battle. After bestowing a bless- 
ing upon him in particular, and the long-tailed barbarians 
in general, who invented that noisest and most diabolical of 
all musical instruments, I descended the quarter of a mile of 
stairway and was guided to the breakfast room by the 
savor of fried ham and eggs, which, in spite of Yankee 
innovation, is still, and I hope ever will be, a favorite 
morning dish in Virginia. After doing my duty to the 
dollar's worth I was expected to get on the outside of, I 
sauntered out in search of any stray zephyr that might 
find its way into the furnace-like borough from the niegh- 
boring hills. 

I was sixty-five miles nearer my journey's end than I 
would have been at Lynchburg, but could reach it no 
sooner than if I had laid over in the latter city, and had 
to wait till two P. M. for the train that was to take me to 
Staunton. Casting about for something of interest to 
occupy the tedious hours of that long midsummer day, 
with the mercury up to the very top of the thermometer — 
and it would have been higher had the instrument been 
longer — a strange gentleman, also on probation, proposed 
a walk to Monticello, two or three miles distant. This 
exactly suited my notions of economizing time and of 
gratifying a mania for ancient relics and memories, and off 
we started. All the way along that serpentine and ascend- 
ing road, my thoughts were busy with the immortal man 
who had so often walked it in the better days of the 
Republic, and not a rock or a tree did we pass that I did 



"ob WILBURN WATERS. 

not imagine that the great statesman and philosopher had 
sat upon and rested under, and could not resist the incli- 
nation to take a seat upon every eligible rock, and to rest 
a moment under every accessible tree, for the simple reason 
that Mr. Jefferson may have done so in his frequent walks 
to and from the village. 

Everybody knows, or ought to know, that Monticello, 
as the first syllable of the name indicates, is a mountain, 
and after a weary walk of an hour or more, we arrived in 
the gap on the summit where the road crosses, and where 
a pure, cold spring leaps from the earth and dashes joy- 
ously away down the mountain-side. Near the spring 
stands an old walnut tree, with a protruding root forming 
a rustic seat, and naturally supposing that Mr. Jefferson 
had often sat there, I dropped into it as a matter of course. 
As the mansion was still a quarter of a mile or more away, 
and upon still higher ground, we remained long enough 
to cool off and reflect upon that good providence which 
distills so pure and refreshing a beverage exactly where it 
is most needed. 

After a rest of some ten or fifteen minutes, we proceeded 
upward along the comb of the mountain, and between the 
spring and the mansion, in a secluded spot in the forest, 
we passed the grave of the great sleeper, inclosed with 
high brick walls, and marked by a rough shaft of native 
granite, selected and fashioned by Mr. Jefferson himself, 
to perpetuate his name and his deeds to coming genera- 
tions. Shaking off the sombre thoughts awakened by the 
the charnel-house and the garnered harvest of the Great 
Reaper in that silent spot, we hurried on, and were soon 



WIL.BURN WATERS. 237 

at (he mansion, moss-covered, dilapidated and criminally 
neglected. The building is of the French chateau style of 
architecture, a mass of angles with a dome on top and 
filled with narrow passages, intricate stairways, dark rooms 
ami quaint niches and closets. The upper rooms, small 
and illy ventilated, were originally lighted from the roof, 
but shingles having been substituted for glass, the rooms 
are now as dark and gloomy as the cells of a prison. I 
was told that the estate originally comprised fourteen 
thousand acres, and that the improvements were very near 
the centre, and cost, including the grading of the site, 
eighty-five thousand dollars. And just here I will take 
occasion to say that while Mr. Jefferson was a great phil- 
osopher and statesman, and knew all about the construc- 
tion of laws, constitutions and other fabrics of political 
science, he seemed to have had but slight conceptions of 
comfort and economy in the construction of a house to 
live in. The mansion on Monticello is, in my opinion, a 
monument of bad taste in architecture, "as are also the 
University at Charlottesville and the Capital at Richmond, 
the plans for which, it is generally understood, were fash- 
ioned and furnished by him. 

Notwithstanding Mr. Jefferson had fourteen thousand 
acres upon which to exercise his skill and display his taste 
in architecture, he seemed to have a passion for burrowing 
in the earth, and as a consequence the summit of Monti- 
cello is as full of subterranean passages as a mole-infested 
potato-patch. 

But to return to the building. At the cost of a mere 
stipend, we were conducted all through the mansion by an 



238 WILBURN WATERS. 

intelligent and communicative old gentleman, in whom we 
realized the personification of the "Wandering Jew," and 
were more than compensated for the fatiguing walk, in the 
gratification of seeing the many relics of the great man's 
household, to say nothing of the magnificent view of the 
surrounding country. Among other things, was the staff 
from which the National flag floated on the dome of his 
house during the term of his Presidency, and the seat of 
the sulky in which he rode to Philadelphia a short time 
before he drafted the Declaration of Independence. In 
addition to these were a chair or two, mirrors, bedsteads, 
&c, all of which have been permitted to remain, and, 
simple and common-place as they are, had an absorbing 
interesting to me. It may be a weakness, and probably 
is, to attach any value to such things; but such is my 
nature and I can't change it, and wouldn't if I could. 

After exploring the house from cellar to attic, up and 
down narrow, dark and winding stairways, together with 
the wine-vault and its quaint manchinery for elevating the 
bottles to the rooms above, we took a stroll through the 
grounds, from which the most splendid view is to be had. 
I lost my bearings, not being able to exactly distinguish the 
cardinal points of the compass, but in the direction I took 
to be east the bright and beautiful Rivanna dodged in and 
out among the hills, till its rushing waters disappeared in 
the distance like a silver ribbon streaming out upon the 
wind. And then toward the north, or at least to the left, 
lay the town of Charlottesville, nestling almost at the base 
of Monticello, with its domes and steeples all glistening 
in the rays of the morning sun, and farther on, lifting 



WILBURN WATERS. 239 

itself high up among the clouds, lay the long line of the 
Blue Ridge, dotted here and there with cultivated fields 
and rural homesteads, presenting an appearance not unlike 
a bed-quilt of the olden time, with patch-work of varied 
shades and hues. And then in the opposite direction, 
taking in the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna and Louisa, 
and portions of Buckingham and perhaps Goochland and 
Cumberland, the view is grand beyond my weak powers 
of description. A mountain in Buckingham, said to be 
sixty-five miles distant, is plain to the naked vision, stand- 
ing out like a solitary watch-tower in all the plain. 

I cannot attempt to describe the view, but I loved to 
contemplate it, not only on account of its intrinsic beauty 
and grandeur, but because Mr. Jefferson admired and 
loved to contemplate it, and reared his habitation where 
he could live and die amid those gorgeous surroundings. 

Charlottesville, with its four hundred students, splendid 
adjacent water-power, and rich surrounding country, is a 
pleasant, refined and quite a pretty place, but it has not 
profited as much as it should have done with its superior 
advantages. A dozen enterprising men with capital could 
make a second Lowell of it, but it has been content with 
the advantages accruing from the University, and with 
the honor of reposing in the shadow of Monticello. 



CHAPTER XL. 

BARON TEU BEUF, THE FRENCH NOBLEMAN WHO SETTLED IN 
RUSSELL COUNTY NEAR THE CLOSE OF THE LAST CENTURY. 

A few years ago Mr James Bickley, of Castle's Woods, 
sent to the writer as a relic of the olden time an immensely 
large cavalry boot, which had been in his family for more 
than half a century. It was made of sole leather, and the 
heel fastened on with eight-penny nails. It had evidently 
been worn over another boot, and if not bullet-proof, cer- 
tainly snake-proof. The owner of this boot — Baron Teu 
Beuf — was not a pioneer of Castle's Woods, but emigrated 
there in 1792 or 1793, a number of years after the last In- 
dian depredations in that section. Being a prominent man 
in his own country, he became involved in the heated po- 
litical broils of 1792, and had to leave to save his head. 
His first destination was London, where he owned pro- 
perty, which he exchanged with a citizen of that city by 
the name of Richard Smith, for a large boundary of land 
which the latter owned in what was then Russell, now 
Wise county. This boundary comprised 55,000 acres 
north of and lying on Clinch and Guerst rivers. 

When he came to this country and found his land all 
an unbroken and unsettled wilderness, he became dissatis- 
fied, and resided for about a year at Dickenson ville, then the 
county seat of Russell. It does not appear that he in- 
tended to plant a colony, as has been supposed, as the only 
persons accompanying him were his wife, son and two male 



WILBURN WATERS. 241 

and two female servants, all white. The only property he 
brought with him now recollected, consisted of a wood- 
saw and two grind-stones. He was evidently in straitened 
circumstances, as, at the end of the first year, he removed 
to his claim and erected his cabin on a place now known 
as Sugar Hill, north of Clinch river, in Wise county, the 
residence of the late Mr. S. H. Bickley. 

The Baron, with the help of his son and servants, soon 
made a little clearing about his cabin, and if he had lived 
would doubtless have opened out a large and valuable 
farm. Having been a nobleman in his own country, and 
owning such a large body of land in this, led to the suppo- 
sition by some that he possessed a large amount of treasure 
in some shape, if not in coin, and this supposition proba- 
bly led to his tragic end. He and his wife were murdered 
in their cabin when all the rest of the household were 
absent, except one of the men servants, who was drowned 
in the river trying to escape. The murderers were never 
known, though strong circumstantial evidence implicated 
two white men and a negro. 

The foregoing is all the history the writer has been able 
to obtain of Baron Teu Beuf, who was supposed to have 
come to this country for the purpose of establishing a 
colony in due time, but whose aspirations and dreams of 
wealth were blasted in a moment, in the prime of his life, 
by the hands of assassins and robbers. The writer has 
been informed by a gentleman who claims to know some- 
thing of his history as he heard it through tradition, that 
Teu Beuf borrowed £2,000 from the Commonwealth of 
Virginia for the purpose of planting a colony, mortgaging 
16 



242 WILBURN WATERS. 

his estate for the payment, and that his lands were sold 
only a few years ago for the payment of the claim, and 
are now principally owned by a few gentlemen in Russell. 
This may or may not be true, but one thing is certain, and 
that is, when a railroad shall have been made through 
these lands to Pound Gap, they will be immensely valua- 
ble. They rest upon a solid foundation of coal, much of 
it the best varieties known, and if indications are not 
deceptive, oil will be found in any quantity. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE NATURAL, BRIDGE OF SCOTT. 

Among the many Natural Curiosities in Southwestern 
Virginia — a number of which have been briefly sketched 
in other chapters of this volume — is the Natural Bridge 
of Scott county. It is not so perfect a bridge as that of 
Rockbridge county, but much grander in proportions. It 
spans a turbulent and rapid little stream bearing the name 
of Stock Creek, and, like its counter-part of Rockbridge, 
has a public highway passing over it. It is, by actual 
measurement, four hundred and twenty feet high — about 
twice as high as the famed Natural Bridge — and the face 
of the structure as smooth and perpendicular as if fash- 
ioned by the skill of a mason. Leading off for several 
hundred yards from the lower side of the bridge, the creek 
is hemmed in by perpendicular walls of a like height, 
some two hundred yards apart, so shutting out the rays of 
the sun from the chasm as to give the rapid stream at the 
bottom an awfully grand appearance. About one hundred 
feet from the top of one of these walls appears a fissure or 
cavern, in the face of a rock, which, during the war of 
1812, was supposed to contain "Peter dirt," the substance 
from which saltpetre is made, an article of considerable 
traffic among the men of the mountains. But how to get 
at it was a question that puzzled the heads of the most 
venturesome, fraught, as it was, with such fearful peril. 



244 WILBURN WATERS. 

A man in the neighborhood by the name of Horton 
agreed to be let down by a strong rope, carrying with him 
a long pole with a hook on the end of it, to pull himself 
in when opposite the cavity. The top of the wall impend- 
ing, he would of course swing out some distance from the 
face of the rock. When his companions were about ready 
to let him down, with a man on the opposite precipice to 
direct their movements, they found the rope was not quite 
long enough, and having proceeded thus far, they deter- 
mined not to relinquish the project, and began to devise 
ways and means of splicing the rope. It was finally de- 
cided to skin a pawpaw tree and twist the bark, which is 
very strong, and splice the rope with it. They did this, 
secured Horton in the noose, and let him down. Thus 
far all worked well,, the man was swinging in the right 
place, and all he had to do was to draw himself in 
with his pole and hook, being some fifteen feet out from 
the place he wanted to reach. Accordingly, he fastened 
his hook in the fissure and drew himself in, but just as 
he was about to grasp the rock with his hand, his hook let 
go, and away he went swinging back and forth like a pen- 
dulum over that fearful chasm, with three hundred feet 
below him, and the bottom covered with jagged boulders 
and a whirling and dashing mountain torrent. It was a 
fearful ride in mid air, but what added horror to the terri- 
ble situation was,, that in its vibrations on the sharp edge 
of the rock one of the strands of the bark rope was severed 
and began to unwind. Horton himself first discovered 
it, and directing the attention of his companions to it, 
they rapidly drew him up, and were fortunate enough to 
grasp the hemp rope just in time to save the daring adven- 



WILBURN WATERS. 245 

turer. Horton, it is said, was about as near dead as alive 
when he reached the top, and was no doubt a wiser if not 
a better man after that, and never again hunted "Peter 
dirt" in that direction. 

In standing upon the opposite cliff and looking down 
into the deep, dark chasm over which that thoughtless 
man had swung like the pendulum of a clock, the writer 
experienced a feeling of awe he cannot describe, but which 
the reader can readily imagine. The adventure was a 
fearful as well as a very silly one, and only shows what 
the weakness of humanity will undertake for the sake ot 
notoriety or the love of gain. 

As said in the beginning of this chapter, this super- 
structure is not so perfect a bridge as that which adorns 
all our geographies, but it is on a much more stupendous 
scale. Its imperfections consist in being much wider than 
long, and the small proportion of arch to the immense 
mass of rock above it. It is really more of a tunnel than a 
bridge, although a public road crosses the chasm upon it. 
The tunnel is not straight, but is in the shape of an S, and 
from two hundred to three hundred yards in length. The 
track of the Virginia and Kentucky railroad is located 
through it, "and the arch is far more than sufficient for 
the passage of a train. Should that road ever be made — 
and no reasonable man can doubt that it will — the Natural 
Bridge of Scott county will become a place of public re- 
sort, more particularly as there are several large caves in 
the immediate vicinity, with a great variety of stalactites 
and stalagmites in all stages of formation — some as hard 
as the rocks that entomb them, and others as pliant as 
putty. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

BRIEF HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN SOUTHWES- 
TERN VIRGINIA, AND THE FIRST MINISTERS— MEMOIRS OF 
REV. CHARLES CUMMINGS. 

The writer is not aware that he could more profitably 
or appropriately bring this miscellaneous volume to a close 
than by giving a brief account of the original organization 
of Churches in Southwestern Virginia, with the names of 
the devoted pioneers who planted the banners of the cross 
among the mountains. 

The Presbyterians were probably the first who wor- 
shiped in houses erected for the purpose, with regularly 
appointed pastors, and the Rev. Charles Cummings is the 
first pastor of whom the writer has any account, but there 
was probably at least one other before him, as there were 
two houses of worship with their membership of staunch 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians when he came here in 1773. 
These were Sinking Spring and Ebbing Spring — the first 
on the highest ground near the centre of the old cemetery 
at Abingdon, and the other on the site of the present 
Glade Spring Church, or somewhere near it. These con- 
gregations included all the Presbyterians from Mount Airy 
to the Tennessee line, and they were an intelligent and 
patriotic people, many of whom fell at the terrible battle 
of King's Mountain, some of them became distinguished 
men, and a large number of the best and most thrifty of 
our present population are their descendants. 



WILBURN WATERS. 247 

For the following brief memoirs of the Rev. Charles 
Cummings, a number of whose grandchildren still live at 
and near Abingdon, the writer is indebted to a little 
pamphlet written by a gentleman who had an intimate 
personal acquaintance with Mr. Cummings. 

Rev. Charles Cummings was an Irishman by birth, and 
came to America in early manhood. He was evidently 
not without means, as soon after arriving in this country 
he entered Carlisle College, Pennsylvania. After receiv- 
ing a thorough education for the times, he settled in Lan- 
caster county, Virginia, where, on the 13th of February, 
1766, he married Miss Milly Carter. He was studying 
divinity at the time, and was licensed to preach by the 
Presbytery of Hanover on the 18th of April, 1767. His 
first call was to North Mountain Church in Augusta 
county, where he labored five years. 

In 1772, he received a call from the people of Holston, 
forming the two congregations above spoken of — Sinking 
and Ebbing Springs. This call he immediately accepted; 
removed with his family, purchased land in the neighbor- 
hood of where Abingdon now stands, and settled upon it, 
and which is now owned by his grandchildren. 

Mr. Cummings was of middle stature, about five feet 
ten inches high ; well set and formed, possessing great per- 
sonal firmness and dignity of character. His voice was 
strong, and had great compass ; his articulation slow, clear 
and distinct; without apparent effort, lie could speak to be 
heard by ten thousand people. His mind was good, but 
not brilliant. He understood his own system well ; spoke 
always with gravity, and required it from all who sat 



248 WILBURN WATERS. 

under the sound of his voice. He would not tolerate any 
movement among the congregation after the services 
commenced. He uniformly spoke like one having author- 
ity, and laid down the law and the Gospel, as he under- 
stood them, with great distinctness. 

At this time the Indians were very troublesome, and 
continued to be so for several years; and generally, during 
the summer months, the families, for safety, were obliged 
to collect together in forts. The one to which he always 
removed his family was Black's Fort, on a knoll on the 
southside of Abingdon, between the railroad and Captain 
Findlay's mill, and immediately opposite the gate leading 
in to the residence of Colonel A. C. Cummings. 

In the month of July, 1776, when his family were in 
the fort, and he, with a servant and wagon, and three 
neighbors, were going to his farm, the party were attacked 
by Indians a few hundred yards from the meeting-house. 
Henry Creswell, who was driving, was killed at the first 
fire of the Indians; and during the skirmish, the two 
other neighbors were wounded. Mr. Cummings and his 
servant man Tobe, both of whom were well armed, drove 
the Indians from their ambush, and with the aid of some 
men from the fort — who hearing their firing came to their 
relief — brought in the dead and wounded. 

From the year Mr. Cummings commenced preaching 
at Sinking Spring, up to about the year 1776, the men 
never went to church without being armed, and taking 
their families with them. On Sabbath morning, during 
this period, it was Mr. Cummings' custom — for he was 
always a very neat man in his dress — to dress himself, 



WILBUEN WATERS. 24& 

then put on his shot-pouch, shoulder his rifle, mount his 
horse, and ride off to church. There he met his gallant 
and intelligent congregation, each man with his rifle in 
his hand. When seated in the meeting-house, they pre- 
sented altogether a most solemn and singular spectacle. 

Mr. Cummings' uniform habit, before entering the 
house, was to take a short walk alone, while the congre- 
gation were seating themselves ; he would then return, at 
the door hold a few words of conversation with some one 
of the elders of . the church ; then walk gravely through 
the crowd, mount the steps of the pulpit, deposit his rifle 
in a corner near him, lay off his shot-pouch, and com- 
mence the solemn services of the day. He would preach 
two sermons, having a short intermission between them, and 
then dismiss the congregation. 

The congregation was very large, and preaching was 
always well attended. On sacramental occasions, which 
were generally about twice a year, the table was spread in 
the grove surrounding the church. Here he preached for 
many years, and until far advanced in life, to one of the 
largest, most respectable and most intelligent congregations 
ever assembled in West Virginia. His congregation at 
Ebbing Spring was equally respectable and intelligent, 
but not so large. What portion of his time he devoted 
to this congregation is not known. It included the fami- 
lies of the Royal Oak (east of where Marion now is) and 
for twenty miles in that direction. 

He was a zealous Whig, and contributed much to kindle 
the patriotic fire which blazed forth so brilliantly among 
the people of the Holston in the war of the Revolution. 



250 WILBURN WATERS. 

He was the first named on the list of the Committee of 
Safety for Fincastle county ; and after the formation of 
Washington county he was chairman of the Committee of 
Safety for that county, and took an active part in all its 
measures. 

He died in March, 1812, in about the eightieth year of 
his age, leaving many and most respectable descendants. 
He was a sincere and exemplary Cnristian, and a John 
Knox in his energy and zeal in support of his own par- 
ticular church. He never lost sight of his object, and 
always marched directly up to it with a full front. He 
performed a great deal of misssonary labor through an ex- 
tensive district of country beyond his immediate field, 
which was of itself large. The fruits of his labors still 
remain, and he is no doubt reaping a rich reward for his 
zeal in the cause of his Master. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM INTO SOUTHWESTERN VIR- 
GINIA, WITH THE NAMES OF THE FIRST MINISTERS OF 
THAT DENOMINATION. 

From the best information the writer can get, the Pres- 
byterians had regularly organized churches in Holston, as 
this part of the State was then called, several years before 
the Methodists found their way through the Alleghanies, 
as the Rev. Mr. Cummings, as shown in the preceding 
chapter, received a call from two regularly organized con- 
gregations in 1772, whereas the first Methodist, of whom 
any reliable account is given, came about the year 1781. 

Mr. McFerrin, in his graphic and interesting work on 
"Methodism in Tennessee," says: "As early as the year 
1785, the first traveling preachers visited the Holston 
country. Their names were Richard Swift and Michael 
Gilbert. The country, at this time, was new and thinly 
settled. They met with many privations and sufferings, 
and made but little progress. The most of the country 
through which they traveled was very mountainous and 
rough, and the people ignorant and uncultivated, and the 
greater part a frontier exposed to Indian depredations. 
They were followed by Mark Whitaker and Mark Moore, 
who were zealous, plain, old-fashioned Methodist preachers, 
and calculated to make an impression. Their labors were 
successful, and they were instrumental in raising up many 



252 WILBURN WATERS. 

societies. Mark Whitaker, in particular, was a strong 
man, and maintained Methodist doctrine in opposition to 
Galvanism, which was the prevailing doctrine of that time. 
He laid a good foundation for his successors, and was fol- 
lowed by Jeremiah Matsen and Thomas Ware, and after 
them in succession Joseph Doddridge, Jeremiah Able, 
John Tunnell, John Baldwin, Charles Havely, John 
McGehee and John West. Under God these men planted 
the standard of the cross in the frontier settlements, and 
numerous societies were raised up, so that in 1791 the so- 
cieties numbered upward of one thousand. * * * * 

The pioneers of Methodism in that part of Western 
Virginia and the Western Territory suffered many pri- 
vations, and underwent much jtoil and labor, preaching in 
forts and cabins, sleeping on straw, bear and buffalo skins, 
living on bear meat, venison and wild turkeys, traveling 
over mountains and through solitary valleys, and some- 
times lying on the cold ground; receiving but scanty sup- 
port, barely enough to keep soul and body together, with 
coarse, home-made apparel; but the best of all was, their 
labors were owned and blessed of God, and they were like 
a band of brothers, having one purpose and end in view — 
the glory of God and the salvation of immortal souls. 
When the preachers met from their different and distant 
fields of labor, they had a feast of love and friendship; 
and when they parted, they wept and embraced each other. 
Such was the spirit of primitive Methodist preachers. 

The first Conference in Southwestern Virginia was held 
at Huffaker's, on the 15th of April, 1792. Bishop Asbury 
presided. "Huffaker's" was on the fine farm now owned 



WILBURN WATERS. 253 

and occupied by Mr. Benjamin K. Buchanan, some three or 
four miles from the Saltworks, and was pronounced "Half- 
acre" in the neighborhood at that day. General Russell 
and his wife are said to have been converted during the 
meeting, and entertained the preachers at their house, 
which was at or near the Saltworks. 

Barnabas McIIenry was one of the first converts in the 
Holslon country, and he lived in Rich Valley, not far from 
the Saltworks. 

As this matter is of interest to the members of the 
Methodist Church, many of whom have not and never 
may see Dr. McFerrin's entertaining book, the writer will 
make one more quotation and dismiss the subject. 

"At the Conference held in 1783 (the second ever held), 
commencing at Ellis' Preaching-house, in Sussex county, 
Virginia, on the 17th of April, and adjourning to Balti- 
more on the 21st of May, there was a return made of the 
Holston Circuit, with sixty members; and with this year 
the statistical history of Methodism in this part of the 
country begins. This was only seventeen years after the 
commonly received date of the organization of the first 
Methodist society in America, and only ten years after the 
first Conference, when the whole number of preachers, as 
previouslv stated, was only ten. So it will be seen that 
Metnodi in in the bounds of the Holston Conference dates 
back almost as far as in any other portion of the country. 
But to the mind of the writer, with the evidence before 
him, there are good reasons to date it back earlier than 
this, and date its commencement in 1776. ****** 
If the reader be curious on this subject, and will take the 



254 WILBUKN WATERS. 

pains to examine, he will find that, after its introduction 
to the Holston country, Methodism worked its way north- 
ward and eastward in Virginia, and also that the Holston 
work was connected with that in Carolina immediately 
east of the mountains, clearly indicating that from thence 
it found its way to this country almost as soon as to any 
part of North Carolina. 

"At the Conference of 1783, when the Holston Circuit 
was formed, there were, in the entire connection in 
America, 13,740 members, and eighty-two preachers were 
this year stationed. But if the history be commenced in 
1776, which the writer believes to be the proper date, 
there were at that time twenty-four preachers and 4,921 
members. So the operations of Methodist preachers, in 
what is now the bounds of Holston Conference, had an 
early, if not a fair start. 

"Jeremiah Lambert was the first appointee to the Hol- 
ston Circuit as such. The war of the Revolution being 
about ended, and the tide of emigration setting strongly 
in this direction, the number of members in the Church 
having increased, as well as the population, and this 
country being separated by high mountains from that on 
the east, it was deemed best, in laying off the work, to 
separate it from that with which it had been connected, and 
assign it to one man. Mr. Lambert's circuit embraced all 
the settlements on the Watauga, Nolichucky and Holston 
rivers, including those in what is now Greene, Washington, 
Carter, Johnson, Sullivan and Hawkins counties, Tennessee, 
and Washington, Smyth, Russell, and perhaps Lee and 
Scott counties, Virginia. This circuit he traveled during 



WILBLTRN WATERS. 255 

the year, but as the country was very sparsely settled, pro- 
visions scarce, and the Indians very troublesome, his hard- 
ships must have been very great and his sufferings severe — 
no accommodations, in the modern acceptation of that 
term, for traveling, lodging, study, or anything else — 
without pay, without hope of earthly reward, without 
earthly friends or protection, and often without food or 
shelter — he made his way, as best he could, in the name 
and for the sake of Him who had said, 'Lo, I am with 
you alway, even to the end of the world,' and at the next 
Conference, or in April, 1784, he returned seventy-six 
members, or sixteen more than he had received. This 
good man ended his career on earth a few years after this, 
and was taken to his reward on high. He was succeeded 
by Henry Willis, and he by Richard Swift and Michael 
Gilbert." 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS, 
AND ITS PIONEER MINISTERS. 

The writer is without accurate information as to the 
exact time of the organization of the first Baptist society 
in the Holston country, but it is known to have existed 
before 1776 — at least co temporary with, if not anterior to, 
the Presbyterian organizations at Sinking and Ebbing 
Springs, which was certainly as early as 1772. 

The first Baptist Church, as far as any reliable informa- 
tion can be had, was at St. Clair's bottom, and as that was 
about the first "clearing" in the Holston region — an En- 
glishman by the name of St. Clair having been found there 
in 1764 — it is more than probable that it was honored 
with the first house of worship. It is of record that the 
ministers, as well as members of that church in its early 
history, worshiped with their rifles in their hands, and 
that they were often harrassed by predatory bands of 
Indians. 

The first Baptist ministers in this part of the State were 
Jonathan Mulkey, Andrew Baker, Edward Kelly, Barnet 
Reynolds and John Brundridge, and they literally took 
their lives in their hands "going about doing good." They 
traveled great distances through a comparative wilderness, 
facing dangers, seen and unseen, for the purpose of dis- 
pensing the blessings of the Gospel among the scattered 



WILBURN WATERS. 257 

settlers ; and all this labor, exposure and danger without 
the prospect or even hope of earthly reward. They were 
mostly unlettered men, but not more so, perhaps, than the 
fishermen who were called from their nets on the sea of 
Galilee, and thus laid a foundation for their successors to 
build upon, and upon which has been reared a spiritual 
temple of magnificent proportions. 

Many of the older citizens of this part of the State re- 
member some of the immediate successors of the primitive 
ministers, among whom were Elders Colley, Jessee, Seuter 
and Edwards, with all of whom the writer had a pleasant 
personal acquaintance. They formed the connecting link 
between the founders of the church in the wilderness and 
the "oldest of the Baptist Ministers of the present day. 
They were men of exemplary lives, and though rude in 
speech preached with great power and effect. They were 
all working men, laboring with their hands for the bread 
that sustained themselves and families, and dispensing the 
bread of life to others without money and without price. 
They were all men of sound, practical sense, and of simple, 
unadorned, but dignified piety. 

Mr. Colley was somewhat eccentric, but a man of great 
earnestness and fidelity. He was a professor, if not a 
preacher, at least as early as 1808, as he was called to visit 
Mr. William King, the founder of the Saltworks, during 
his last illness, who died in October of that year. 

Mr. Jessee would have ranked with the ablest divines of 
the present day in his familiarity with theology and his 
natural elocution. The writer was present on one occasion, 
17 



258 WILBURN WATERS. 

many years ago, when Mr. Edwards girded himself with 
a towel and washed the disciples' feet. 

These were all grand old men, simple in speech as in 
garb, and the great Hereafter only can reveal the amount 
of good they accomplished in their day. 

When there was a division in the church some thirty-odd 
years ago on the subject of Foreign Missions, Mr. Jessee 
gave the missionary cause his hearty and zealous support, 
and Mr. Colley was equally as earnest in his opposition, 
He thought the Church could and would evangelize the 
world, and had no need of auxiliary societies of any sort. 
When the matter was discussed at Yellow Spring, where 
he had ministered for many years, he stood alone in his 
opposition. When a brother arose and said there was some- 
thing radically wrong in such opposition, Mr. Colley re- 
plied "take your seat, my brother, you know nothing about 
it. We have all heard of Radical* Methodists, but who 
ever heard of a radical Baptist?" 

*Alluding to the Methodist Protestant Church, by some called 
Radical in derision. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CANEY VALLEY. 

Caney Valley, as it is called by some, and Elk Valley 
by others, is so little known, even by a large number of 
persons in Washington county, that the writer hopes a brief 
description of some of its peculiarities will not be unac- 
ceptable to many of the readers of this book. 

This Valley, if a succession of depressions and elevations 
may be so denominated, is a tract of country among the 
river hills in Washington county, running east and west, 
parallel with Rich and Poor Valleys, and about midway 
between them. The hills on each side come down sharply, 
and while here and there a comparatively level field may 
be found a tew hundred yards wide, in much the larger 
portion of it the space between the hills is barely wide 
enough for a wagon-road. Its eastern end is at a point 
some six or seven miles northeast of Abingdon, and it ex- 
tends to Livingston's creek, near the Jine between Wash- 
ington aud Scott counties. A singular peculiarity in it is, 
that all along its length — some twenty-five or thirty miles — 
and even where the hills are divided by a mere ravine, 
the soils on each side are as dissimilar as if they were hun- 
dreds of miles apart — the southern side being clay and 
black loam, exceedingly fertile, adapted to all the grasses, 
unaffected by drouth, and producing fine crops in the dry- 
est season. The soil has a limestone foundation, of a very 



260 WILBURN WATERS. 

smooth and fine texture, but almost worthless for purposes 
of agriculture or mechanics, neither can it be satisfactorily- 
dressed with a hammer or converted into lime. 

The soil on the north side is almost exclusively composed 
of rich red sand, from four to six feet deep, sufficiently 
pure and fine to make brick and mortar, resting upon a 
dark red or brown granite foundation, which works tole- 
rably well, but is much harder than limestone. Several 
quarries have been opened, from which large numbers of 
grind -stones have been taken, of fair quality. 

In some portions of the Valley large patches of cane 
are still to be seen, seemingly determined to hold its 
original right to the soil, regardless of the encroachments 
of tobacco planters and grazers, as exteusive crops of 
tobacco are now raised there, and hundreds of cattle grazed. 
The timber is not excelled anywhere in the Southwest, par- 
ticularly walnut and poplar, and there are many magnifi- 
cent groves of sugar-trees. 

Tradition says that salt is one of the resources of the 
Valley, which has been found on the land of Rev. Willis 
Ingle, dec'd, in a morass which was once famous as a deer 
and buffalo lick. This lick is near a patch of cane which, 
many years ago, grew as luxuriantly and as thick as a first- 
rate field of rye. Old settlers relate that a plain, well- 
beaten trace from this lick to the Saltworks of Washington 
and Smyth wound along the Valley in the olden time. 

On the farm of Mr. Alexander Wood is a red sulphur 
spring of fine medicinal properties, and on the eastern end 
of the farm of the late Solomon Fleenor is a field of six 
or eight acres, where was once an Indian town, many 



WILBUKN WATERS. 261 

evidences of which are still visible, such as darts, stone 
hatchets, great quantities of perriwinkle and the remains 
of small shell-fish, although there is no stream larger than 
a spring branch near. 

This valley, remote and isolated as it is, was settled by 
a few persons at an early period of the Holston settle- 
ments, as Mr. Solomon Fleenor, who died in 1855, and 
was a soldier in the war of 1812, lived nearly all his life 
on the farm where he died, and who, in his younger days, 
found and preserved many aboriginal relics. He was a 
good and useful citizen, possessed a large store of infor- 
mation, and took great delight in treasuring up the inci- 
dents of the past. 

Thirty years ago there was but one wagon in Caney 
Valley, and not a single public road upon which it could 
be used. At present, most of farmers have them, with 
tolerable roads at intervals to get their products to market. 
A vast improvement has been made in population and 
enterprise within the last fifteen years, and the farmers sell 
as much produce and stock as a like number in any other 
part of the country. The fact is Caney Valley is more 
densely populated than any other part of the county of 
like area, and produces more and a finer quality of tobacco 
than all the balance of the county. Many of the readers 
of this chapter will remember Kennady Tate, who lived 
in that part of the Valley where the Russell and Abing- 
don turnpike crosses it, who paid for the large tract of 
land upon which he lived and died in Irish potatoes at 
twenty-five cents per bushel. The soil on one side is spe- 
cially adapted to the production of root crops, and the 



262 WILBURN WATERS. 

other side to tobacco. It is unexcelled for apples and 
peaches, which rarely fail. 

In one portion of the valley is a cave, from the month of 
which a constant stream of wind issues, strong enough, even 
when not a breath of air is stirring on the outside, to 
Bway the bushes to and fro. A mile or two off, on the 
farm of John M. Hamilton, Esq., is an Indian mound of 
considerable dimensions, from which several skeletons have 
been exhumed. In some of the brick in Mr. Hamilton's 
chimneys, the writer is informed, made at or near this mound, 
teeth and parts of human bones have been found. 

The foregoing is a very brief description of Caney 
Valley, which is almost as much unknown to many of the 
citizens of the county as the Valley of the Nile, notwith- 
standing the fertility of the soil, superior water-power, and 
almost unequaled timber. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

HISTORY OF THE WEEPING WILLOW. 

In one of the early numbers of Scribner's Magazine, the 
writer read a very interesting history of this beautiful tree 
(Salix Babylonica), and its introduction on our continent. 
The article was written by Benson F. Lossing, the cele- 
brated pictorial historian, who says that the willow is a 
native of Babylon, and was known in no other part of 
the world till hundreds of years after the captive Jews 
hung their harps upon it, and refused to sing the songs of 
Zion in a strange land. 

Mr. Lossing, in tracing its history, says that the first wil- 
low in England was sent by a gentleman in Egypt to the 
great English poet, Alexander Pope, two hundred years 
ago, in this wise: He sent Mr. Pope a box of figs, in 
which the latter found a green twig that did not belong to 
the fruit, and being fond of exotics, he planted it in a 
marshy spot in his garden at Twickenham on the Thames, 
and in a few years it became a beautiful and flourishing 
tree. 

In 1776, during the American Revolution, a British 
officer, on his departure to the New World, and supposing 
the Colonies would soon be conquered and that he would 
become possessed of a princely estate belonging to some 
wealthy rebel, plucked a twig from Pope's tree, to plant 
upon his anticipated estate on this side of the water. 



264 WILBURN WATERS. 

During the war he became acquainted with Mr. John P: 
Custis, the step-son and Aid of General Washington, who 
often visited the British headquarters under flag of truce, 
and a warm friendship grew up between them. At the 
evacuation of Boston, and finding that his dream of acqui- 
ring an estate by conquest in America had been dissipated, 
the officer presented Mr. Custis with the twig carefully 
wrapped in a piece of oiled silk. The latter soon after 
married, and the account says he planted the twig on his 
estate at Abingdon, Virginia. After it grew to some size, 
he gave General Gates two twigs, who planted them on his 
estate in New York. Some twenty years after hearing this 
remarkable history, says Mr. Lossing, he was at Arlington, 
then the residence of Mr. George W. P. Custis, the son 
of the gentleman already named, and while conversing 
with him upon the subject, the old gentleman pointed to 
a magnificent willow in the yard, and remarked "that is 
a child of the tree at Abingdon." 

The writer, on seeing this in Scribner's Magazine, and 
having no knowledge of any other Abingdon in Virginia 
besides our own in Washington county, and feeling inte- 
rested in learning something further upon the subject* 
entered into a correspondence with Mr. Lossing, in the 
course of which that gentleman ascertained that the Abing- 
don spoken of by Mr. Custis was his father's estate on the 
Potomac above Arlington. This dissipated the fond dream 
that our Abingdon had been the favored spot for propaga- 
ting the first willow upon American soil, but it lead to an 
investigation that satisfied him that it was introduced in 
what was then called the "Holston settlements" soon after 



WILBURN WATERS. 265 

the Revolution, as the following facts will attest: The 
writer learns from one of the oldest citizens of the county 
that two willow trees were growing upon the estate of 
General Tate, at the Broad Ford, six miles above the Salt- 
works, as far back as 1806, one of them quite large. In 
1794, the writer has learned from good authority, David 
and Michael Shaver each came into possession of a twig — 
perhaps from the trees at Broad Ford — and planted them 
at their mother's residence, five miles south of Abingdon, 
now owned by Mr. David Parks. About the beginning 
of the present century, Mi. William King, the original 
owner of the Saltworks, who died in 1808, planted a wil- 
low twig in the back yard of his residence at Abingdon, 
and which was standing there as late as 1836. So, although 
another Abingdon than our own is entitled to the credit of 
producing the first Egyptian tree on the American conti- 
nent, there is very reasonable ground for supposing that 
Washington county produced the second. 



